Work phone dilemma!

[Doodleboodle]

Hello, I’ve started at a new company. As part of my work, I get an iphone (as I think is the norm, it’s the property of company, so if I left, it would Obvs be returned). I also have my own iPhone with its own number.

qu: do you have a work phone?

If so, what did you do? do you just have one phone (and port your home number into work phone, abandon home phone), or do you have two phones?

I’m new to this malarkey and think I should probably only have one phone, since I now realise I don’t really want to cart two phones around, have contacts in different places, my kindle on my home phone and not my work phone, but I stupidly ordered a second one via work without specify the wish to port my number.

I have no idea how long I’ll work for this company, but hoping it’s a long term prospect. Also, if I do stick with two phones, anyone know if there maybe a way to mirror home phone contacts and kindle etc onto work phone (while keeping home phone)? Ug, I really don’t know what is best, and it’s driving me mad. I could still cancel the work phone and start again!

Thank you! And sorry this is quite a boring qu, I did wonder if I should make the headline more interesting in the hope that some kind person might reply!

Having one phone for both is a huge security issue. Your personal snaps could sync to work drives, and worse, work to personal. Someone accidentally deleted shed loads of work files trying to free up space on his work/personal phone.

Absolutely ludicrous for anyone to have a work and personal phone combined.

I was similar to your DH (also add in portable conference pods, extra screens, chargers, foreign plug adaptors etc) particularly when I travelled on business. I was sent for secondary screening at Heathrow with the comment "inside your handbag looks like a branch of Currys". 😂

One phone, 2 sims. Need good boundaries but it's easy.

As others have said, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't an actual policy for this. We aren't allowed to use our phones for personal reasons and the data usage and calls are regularly checked - people have been questioned about using too much data and for calls to certain numbers. As someone else mentioned, I also wouldn't want my personal things synced with my work info because they check all of that too.
But the main reason, as most people have said, is that my work phone is turned off as soon as I'm outside of work. I've seen people who even with two phones still answer their work phone at all hours and on their day off. It's important to have boundaries and its far more likely that youll find yourself just quickly answering an email or call out of hours and before you know it you've spent your evening working. Turn it off, forget about it until the next day.

The only thing ludicrous about this is the fact your IT Manager hasn't been sacked for being absolutely useless. None of the scenarios mentioned should be an issue if someone knows how to do their job.

I have a work and personal phone. I keep them very separate

I only use my work phone. Gave up my personal phone about 8yrs ago. Hated carrying around two phone ms and paying for one I didn’t need to. I use mine abroad with no issues. I never have email notifications on anyway, so I just don’t open the email app if not working.

Indeed!! I cannot see how this could happen, must be a very small company. And yea, the IT manager should indeed be sacked for gross negligence!!

See this was my thinking. But it seems the vast majority warns against it. (I also need to really dig into work policy, but they are a massive company — @Krakenes is your company much smaller, eg not multinational etc. perhaps the one phone thing works only for those who work in small companies, eg where they work with the owners, not with tonnes of bureaucracy etc.

this is the first massive corporation I’ve ever worked in, where I don’t know everyone in the company simply because it’s so huge etc, so I’m not used to what’s what! Very very useful points about keeping work and home separate too!

I have one phone as I couldn't be bothered carrying two phones around with me. If/when I leave the company, I have the option to buy it from them for whatever it would then be worth.

@Doodleboodle I work in a small company now and we have policies that allow you to use your own phone or you can use their provided phone. Previously I was at one of the biggest US banks and we could use personal mobiles also (it was actively encouraged) and the apps you needed were all installed so that they could be deleted and removed and the company were happy with that.

Of course check out the policies of the specific company just in case they have something different but I'd be wary of what some people have said as a lot of it seems to come from people who don't have a clue how properly managed technology should work.

Ultimately it's a convenience thing as can be seen from the various responses. Some people like being able to separate it completely, others manage by being self disciplined and setting work apps to mute or be quiet when you don't want to be contacted. Phones offer all sort of solutions so do what you feel most comfortable with

I've had 2 phones for years.
I only have my work phone on me / near me and turned on during work hours. Otherwise I keep it tidied away.
I only have a couple of personal contacts on there in case of emergency etc.

My personal phone is my main phone.

I've always done it like this. I have no interest in being always available and having personal stuff on company property. I also don't want to have to trawl through calls and mark which ones are personal calls to reimburse them (not sure if your company has this policy).

I prefer two separate phones.

I have 2 phones. I like to keep work and personal separate.

I also like to leave my work phone at home when I go on holiday.

You don’t want work people having your personal number

I have 2 and I leave the work phone in my drawer tbh and only switch it on 9-5.30 and it’s left behind while I’m holiday etc

Definitely 2 phones. I work part time so don't want emails/teams messages popping up constantly when I'm not working. I only ever carry both phones if I'm going into the office or on a work trip somewhere, so it's not that much hassle. If I'm going out not on work time, then it's personal only. But my manager would tell me off if I emailed him out of hours without good reason - we're very protective of our work life balance - I guess it would be different if you were expected to look at things over the weekend etc.

I have 2 phones. Work and personal.

Work phone is solely used for work. Turned on at 9am and turned off at 5pm. Remains off I'm in on leave. Work contacts and colleagues only have my work phone number. I make all business and work calls on the work phone, never personal numbers.

Personal phone is used for absolutely everything else except work.

I just carry two phones around 🤷🏻‍♀️

Two phones. Work phone sits in the bottom of a bag or in the office at the weekend. I do t want to see it. It's also a shit Samsung. Security means I can't take it out of the country without sign off so I happily leave it behind.

You sound naive. You should never use a work device for anything personal, don’t be surprised when your company admin can access all your sensitive data

I work for a huge multinational company. Can only speak for the UK arm but they buy a job lot of data and it’s transferable to all employees so nobody ‘runs out’. A lot of us have iPads with data roaming but often people just use them at home to watch Netflix so there is a lot of excess data. I went to South America and used my phone everyday for sat nav. Was never an issue.

I’ve not had an issue keeping work and home life separate. A lot of people in my company just have one phone.

I much prefer having two phones. I wanna be able to turn on my phone to check the time at 4am without seeing that I’ve got a pope of work emails from my boss. Also on a work phone yoir company can see whatever you looo at and I prefer to be able to look at belly button rings or read romances on the kindle app without the IT department sniggering.

DH however has one phone. So when he wakes up, he picks it up to check the time, starts reading work emails and ends up in a tense work-focused grump before we’ve even said good morning. Good morning sex has disappeared I can tell you.

What's your work policy on phone use? Sometimes you are allowed to use work phones for personal use, but other places do not allow this so you need to take that into consideration before you decide. Personally I find it useful to have two phones because I can keep all my work stuff off my personal one and just switch it off and stick it in a drawer when I am not working. When I was commuting every day though I did sometimes feel an additional phone was just extra weight to carry! Be aware if you port your personal number to a work phone you may not be allowed to take it with you when you leave unless you pay a fee. This was the policy at my last place of work.