Karen Codere

Use HR to Knit Together a Great Team of Talent

Cell Phone Policies Should Spell Everything Out

 

In my last Insight, I explained how a cell phone policy works. 

Unfortunately, there are some mistakes I commonly see employers make regarding cell phone policies, such as: 

• Expecting employees to use their personal cell phone for company purposes;
• Calling employees on their personal cell phones at all times of the day or night;  and
• Expecting employees to do business if they do pick up their phone during their days off (such as on the weekends or on vacation). If they are non-exempt staff, there are some pay ramifications to working during non-standard hours. 

For the most part, employees are usually OK with receiving work-related calls during non-work hours. 

For example, an employer/manager calling an employee on a Saturday afternoon and saying, “Such and such came up; can you tell me where XYZ file is?” is usually tolerable. 

However, if calling during non-work hours is abused or misused—by a manager making lots of calls and demanding an employee come to the office to handle issues—that becomes an infringement on the employee’s personal time. If you expect an employee to be constantly ‘on call’ and answering the phone, that should be built into the job description. 

That’s why it’s important for companies to have cell phone policies in place that protect employees’ personal time, as well as protect the company from company-owned cell phone misuse/abuse by employees. Also, there may be liability concerns for a company for actions by an employee on a company phone. 

In order to create an effective cell phone policy, you need to: 

1. Look at how employees are using their work cell phones currently, and how they’re expected to use them for the next year or so, because you want to create a policy that lasts.
   
   
2. Look at safety issues and harassment issues regarding work cell phones.
   
   
3. Determine who pays for what—does the company foot the bill? Does the employee pay for the bill up front and then get reimbursed?
   
   
4. Determine what an employee’s expectations of privacy should be—will cell phones be subject to random searches? Will all calls be recorded?
   
   
5. Decide which features will be allowed and which ones won’t be—cell phones these days, especially BlackBerries and iPhones, have all kinds of features available, such as Facebook applications, instant messaging, Internet access, downloading ringtones and videos, etc. Some companies allow employees to use their work phones however they choose. Other companies restrict use. You need to decide which features will and will not be allowed on your company cell phones and include it in your policy. 

Make sure that your company crafts a cell phone policy that contains all the above-mentioned items so employees know exactly what is expected when using a company cell phone. 

In my next Insight, I’ll give an example of a time I helped a company create a cell phone policy.

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