Two Cell Phones or One: Separating Work from Personal Life (employment, employer)
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If my phone plan was comped or a stipend issued for the majority of costs, I wouldn't be in such a fuss. We're not offered any compensation for using our personal cell. It's an expectation that we pay for the employer's ability to reach us after hours. We pay for the data and texting plans out of own pocket. That's why I raised a commotion last year. If I was comped and the company stuff was in Good Mobile or a similar sandbox, it wouldn't be nearly as alarming.
That makes sense.
Right now I use Blackberry Work (Blackberry bought Good, so it's the same product, but branded Blackberry now). I also get $30/mo towards my personal cell phone bill. That doesn't cover the entire thing obviously, but is enough to cover the portion of the phone I end up using for work.
From a compliance/risk point of view alone, I'm surprised anyone has a BYOD policy and doesn't use something like Good/Blackberry Work today.
Right now I use Blackberry Work (Blackberry bought Good, so it's the same product, but branded Blackberry now). I also get $30/mo towards my personal cell phone bill. That doesn't cover the entire thing obviously, but is enough to cover the portion of the phone I end up using for work.
From a compliance/risk point of view alone, I'm surprised anyone has a BYOD policy and doesn't use something like Good/Blackberry Work today.
I don't like commingled personal and work email. If you use the default Apple client and just press mail, that's what you get until you back out and check by inbox.
At that former employer, IT could wipe all personal contents of your phone without your knowledge. What if there is a bad patch or error? To me, BYOD is horrible with the way most employers are today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by G-fused
Get another phone and expense it.
Or, there are many apps with phone #'s you can use.
It's done all the time.
Best of luck
Many companies do not allow you to expense your personal plan for business use. You're required to pay for the plan for your employer to be able to reach you.
Yesterday, I found out that I will not be issued a company cell phone. It’s a BYOD (bring your own device) setup. I would be expected to use my personal cell phone for work. I can expense the bill every month, which is nice, but I immediately thought of the blurring of my work and personal life and I’m not sure of how thrilled I will be about that.
I already expect to work long hours, but my weekends will be mine. My personal number will be given to clients so they can reach me. At recent employers, I sometimes used my cell phone for conference calls when working from home or for co-workers to reach me, but clients never had my personal number.
I’m also concerned with possibly losing my number later, a number I have had for years and the only number many friends and family have in order to reach me. Then there’s the personal information, although I do backup to iCloud, so probably not a big deal there. Work would allow me to expense the monthly plan of the second device, but not the second device itself.
On the other hand, carrying a second won’t be fun either. I haven’t had to do that since the BlackBerry heydays. Phones are larger now too. More to lose and have to keep up with.
I’m still deciding on what to do, but I’m curious for anyone who has the BYOD option, do you use one cell phone or two? If it was your choice at work, what would you do?
I make it clear to my employer that they will never be given admin rights to my personal device. My phone is just that: mine.
If they don't provide phones, I would activate an older phone or buy a cheap smartphone (and expense it to them) and add that as a line to my existing service (which I would also expense). They could be admin on that because they're paying for it so the phone is technically theirs.
If an employer expects me to check e-mails & be available outside of work hours, issue me a phone or pay for a phone. It's as simple as that. I will not allow them to piggyback on my personal phone and I do not give my personal phone number to coworkers (except for my direct supervisor).
If done correctly - BYOD can benefit both parties. The problem isn't the concept, but the execution of it (as with just about everything in life).
In many cases - it's an option. A company has decided that they don't (or no longer) want to manage additional devices. So they give BYOD as an option. In many cases, it's simply a convenience factor. In other cases, it a requirement of your job to be reachable during off hours. In the latter case, you can either use your cell phone, or give them your home number. This is really no different than before cell phones were around. Some decide that they don't want to mix personal with work. That's fine, but then you don't get to access work email from home or from your phone - which may necessitate you to spend more time at work. Now, companies that straight out expect people to use their personal devices for work without any compensation, that's a whole different story.
As for the privacy concern. This really comes down to communication. How a company explains the decision, etc. and how they will be managing it. Understanding that not everyone will agree. But you're never going to get everyone's buy in for everything.The mobile device management tools are really to protect the company's assets and prevent data loss. And if done right, it should not impact on one's personal data. The company's data is sandboxed in an encrypted container. The applications "authorized" by the organization is pushed down automatically and resides in this container. Should you leave the company, they simply wipe the container without touching the personal data. The point here is that it's not being used to "spy" on people. Can this be abused by that nosy employee we've all had to deal with? Sure. But the issue is that individual, not the capability/process.
These tools have also gotten better over the years. In the past, policies would be pushed down that would affect the entire phone. Things like forcing a passcode or password, forcing encryption, etc. (albeit all of these thing should be used anyways). Today, organizations can essentially segregate everything and only worry about that container. You can turn off the screen lock or even encryption for your personal data. But that container will not be accessible without your passcode/biometrics and is encrypted, etc. And all the company's data, application, etc. is in the container.
Of course, these more sophisticated management tools do cost money and require skills to administer. Whereas the more basic tools will often come with the mail servers within the organization (likely Microsoft Exchange). So just because it is available doesn't automatically mean every company will use it.
I've been using my long-held personal mobile phone as my official phone for my organization. It hasn't been too bad, don't get many after-hours calls. But, my phone number is getting dirtier every day, like an old line phone. Dirty with aggressive telemarketers/telebots. I'll probably start fresh with a new, clean number after I resign. Although I can't blame this problem wholly on my employer.
If done correctly - BYOD can benefit both parties. The problem isn't the concept, but the execution of it (as with just about everything in life).
In many cases - it's an option. A company has decided that they don't (or no longer) want to manage additional devices. So they give BYOD as an option. In many cases, it's simply a convenience factor. In other cases, it a requirement of your job to be reachable during off hours. In the latter case, you can either use your cell phone, or give them your home number. This is really no different than before cell phones were around. Some decide that they don't want to mix personal with work. That's fine, but then you don't get to access work email from home or from your phone - which may necessitate you to spend more time at work. Now, companies that straight out expect people to use their personal devices for work without any compensation, that's a whole different story.
As for the privacy concern. This really comes down to communication. How a company explains the decision, etc. and how they will be managing it. Understanding that not everyone will agree. But you're never going to get everyone's buy in for everything.The mobile device management tools are really to protect the company's assets and prevent data loss. And if done right, it should not impact on one's personal data. The company's data is sandboxed in an encrypted container. The applications "authorized" by the organization is pushed down automatically and resides in this container. Should you leave the company, they simply wipe the container without touching the personal data. The point here is that it's not being used to "spy" on people. Can this be abused by that nosy employee we've all had to deal with? Sure. But the issue is that individual, not the capability/process.
These tools have also gotten better over the years. In the past, policies would be pushed down that would affect the entire phone. Things like forcing a passcode or password, forcing encryption, etc. (albeit all of these thing should be used anyways). Today, organizations can essentially segregate everything and only worry about that container. You can turn off the screen lock or even encryption for your personal data. But that container will not be accessible without your passcode/biometrics and is encrypted, etc. And all the company's data, application, etc. is in the container.
Of course, these more sophisticated management tools do cost money and require skills to administer. Whereas the more basic tools will often come with the mail servers within the organization (likely Microsoft Exchange). So just because it is available doesn't automatically mean every company will use it.
It's been several years since I was on the admin side of things, but the companies not reimbursing staff for BYOD cell phone plans are probably the same ones not investing in a more sophisticated MDM infrastructure that allows a more reasonable segregation.
Last edited by Serious Conversation; 09-07-2018 at 08:40 AM..
I've done both, and I prefer carrying two phones. In the role where I had two, I wasn't expected to answer emails on weekends or vacation, and it was nice to just leave that phone home and not have the temptation to check "just because". I'm definitely an email checker lol.
At my current company, company phones are issues for Associate Director and above, so many people carry around their multiple phones and it is what it is. My manager, her manager, my direct report and my team have my cell phone number. It's in my signature, but not once has a client called me on it. I can count on one hand the number of times they've called my office number, though.
Past company offered the option of either a company phone or BYOD - I was torn because if I had done BYOD, they would have completely paid my phone bill, but I would have had to sign my line over to them, wouldn't have been able to upgrade my phone, and they would have access to all of my personal info as well as the ability to wipe whenever they deemed necessary. Additionally, my line is part of a family plan, so I would have had to separate out from the family plan to port it over to them. They said when you left the company, it was likely you could get your number back, but I just didn't want to deal with it, so I chose the company phone option. My manager at that company left, and she had chosen BYOD, she had a bit of a nightmare switching back over (probably more due to her inefficiency than anything else but still).
If given the choice, I'd go company phone. In your case, I'd upgrade my own phone, use the older one to open a new line for them to reimburse.
I have one number for everything, and it's a number posted all over in public and in advertising. Clients know they can always reach me and this helps my business. I still have plenty of personal life, and I would not want to drag around two phones.
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