My employers new stance on cell phones.....its YOUR responsibility

[biggeemac]

Well, with my company, when you try to tie into the company email via activesync, there is a little splash screen that appears that you have to agree to that basically says that they reserve the right to remote wipe your device. I declined and set up an OWA app instead.

 

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[Ninjakid]

Well, with my company, when you try to tie into the company email via activesync, there is a little splash screen that appears that you have to agree to that basically says that they reserve the right to remote wipe your device. I declined and set up an OWA app instead.

This is actually the thing I hate about smartphones. So many security vulnerabilities. If only people knew all the ways their mobile device could easily be compromised.

 

[Contrarian]

Is that even legal?

Nope, it's an imprisonable offence. It's also impossible to prove sadly.

 

[mt_myke]

Some of the things that bothers me about the this new BYOM (bring your own mobile) program and the accompanying software is how your company messages, calendar, emails, etc are automatically synced to your phone. I don't want that stuff mixing with my personal information. I also don't like how we have to agree to have our phones wiped if the company deems it necessary. There's no guarantee we'll get a warning either if such a situation should ever happen. You're essentially left to regularly backup your phone and "hope" it never does.

For Android at least, a solution is coming - Android for Work. Basically it lets you "containerize" your work apps and data away from your own personal stuff, so you have multiple profiles/logins instead of just one. I haven't used this yet but I imagine it would make an android device more like a typical desktop computer - log in with multiple accounts and get a completely different desktop, set of personal documents, settings, etc. The company could still monitor/control/wipe this profile/login, but not touch your personal login.

https://www.android.com/intl/en_us/work/

 

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[AntEmpire]

For Android at least, a solution is coming - Android for Work. Basically it lets you "containerize" your work apps and data away from your own personal stuff, so you have multiple profiles/logins instead of just one. I haven't used this yet but I imagine it would make an android device more like a typical desktop computer - log in with multiple accounts and get a completely different desktop, set of personal documents, settings, etc. The company could still monitor/control/wipe this profile/login, but not touch your personal login.

https://www.android.com/intl/en_us/work/

I hope it works. The app we were assigned to use was supposed to containerize our info too, but it didn't.

 

[Ninjakid]

Nope, it's an imprisonable offence. It's also impossible to prove sadly.

a digital forensics specialist would be able to trace to device that did the remote wiping. You should seek one out, then you'd be able to get the evidence to take legal action.

 

[eliquid]

I see both sides of the coin in the situation here.

Some of you that disagree with @biggeemac, I see your point.

However, here is the way I look at it....

What I do behind closed doors is my business and only my business. If I want to go home, drink myself into a stupor, and not answer my personal phone.. so be it. When my employer sets up a new rule 2 years into my employment ( without my input or consideration ) that I must now start answering my personal phone at home ( regardless if I agreed 2 years ago to be on call with THEIR phone or not ), that's someone stepping into my personal life more and more, just like big brother. However, I am not getting paid more for this, I am actually losing money.

I had a situation where I was the only digital marketer for an old employer spanning about 3 years. Knowing how much they relied on me and my performance, I did work late nights from home, weekends, and holidays to start/stop PPC campaigns and fix issues when they came up. I never agreed to this upon being hired and it was something I gradually worked into over the years on my own, but it was needed and I did it. I could have just 9-5'd it, but many times late at night and on weekends ( and vacations ) shit came up only I could fix and I felt like I needed to do it.

Once the company hired on 2 more marketers ( 3 years later ), we split the responsibilities up and I decided to stop working late nights and weekends and for sure stopped working on holidays and vacations. My new co-workers never even attempted to work at those times/days. I finally started being able to "relax" and "breathe" some and enjoy my personal life again with my wife and kids.

After about 4 months getting back into having my personal time back, my employer made it mandatory that we start taking home our company provided laptops and having them for issues that might came up that are work related after hours.

What? Now I am required to fix issues after hours and take home and be responsible for this laptop too and I'm not getting paid more for it?

My attitude was I did this for 3 years already and put in a lot of sweat and tears without being asked or expected. I finally get to the point where I personally hand built up the department and company to be able to hire more people to spread out the work. Now that I finally get to spend time with my family after hours ( which I felt was my reward for doing this for 3 years and building the company up to millions in rev ), I am forced to go back to it without consent AND have to babysit a laptop too without any more benefit?

Not too long after that, several people dropped and "lost" their laptops and the company changed the policy to where you had to use your own computer or laptop at home and also your cell phone at home after hours.

I decided I wasn't going to let someone else dictate my life after that. People and companies will always try to take from you. Keyword is "try". You always have the option to say no to it and move along somewhere else.

Some of you guys are acting like this is no big deal, but for some people this is a clear violation of expectations and space. I didn't agree to take on a job with an employer years ago to where they could control almost 100% of my daily life. It ended up becoming a "bait and switch" situation essentially.

No matter the situation or extreme, no one walks into an initial agreement for employment expecting their life to be micromanaged 100% of the day over the course of a few months/years. Once it happens though, I agree you need to make a stand and a choice in what you really want in life.

 

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[CommonCents]

i just had an r&d employee leave, violating her agreement and taking vital company info. She thought she was sneaky deleting web history on laptop etc... She was not sneaky enough. $3,000 bucks for a forensic analysis uncovered lots of stuff. It takes companies years and millions of dollars to build up their IP and they must take steps in this digital world to keep it safe from a simple copy and paste.

But yeah, companies make some bonehead moves. I sold a previous co to a fortune 200 and had to stay on a year. Wow, can't believe they are still in business and they are a household brand.

 

[WestCoast]

I don't pay the cellphone bill for any of my employees. I expect them to keep their private lives private with their own cellphone.
Occasionally they have to talk to customer on their cell phones.
They don't tend to like it, but they don't make a big fuss.
They are a good staff, so they do it as needed.
I make sure to tell them it isn't mandatory, but that I recognized they do it sometimes and that I appreciate them going the extra mile.

The more we help our customers, the more money we make, the bigger their bonuses are