How do I stop my colleagues contacting me on my personal phone?

[didntyou]

I'm after some advice. A few years ago my line manager and I had to travel somewhere for a meeting. She gave me her phone number and I made the mistake of texting her from my own phone when I was on my way to meet her. I wouldn't class her as a friend, we are most definitely colleagues.

Since then she occasionally sends me work related messages on WhatsApp, and has since shared my phone number without permission to another manager, who has phoned me at home about a work related incident.

Am I being unreasonable to not want to use my own phone for work communications? I don't particularly like my job, and don't want to be reminded of work by seeing their profile pictures whilst scrolling through WhatsApp (I saved their phone numbers so that I know when they are calling before I answer).

I have a work laptop, and they can contact me on that by email or Skype/Zoom, but as soon as the laptop is off I want to be left alone.

How do I fix this? I don't feel like I can tell them to delete my phone number as it's been going on for so long, and don't really want to change my number because of the hassle involved. Any ideas?

No it doesn't matter. Once your colleagues are in your contacts, they show up in other social media, and even if you mute, you'll still see their faces in your WhatsApp, stressing you out. Block.

"Lose" your phone & change your number or if your phone is dual sim put another sim in for long enough to give your boss your new number, then remove it & keep it safe until any time you need to contact work.

Email them saying that from now all work related communication goes through work channels. You will not be receiving work communication sent to your private number.

If you are on holiday, day off, or just not working, and your phone rings from a work number, what do you do?

Or someone sends a text message?

This is a good plan. Don’t lie about changing your number. They may ask for the new number or ask for it to update HR for emergencies (not related to your actual work but maybe office closure).

Not part of my job

Block them and say you deleted WhatsApp here's your work number

I get this with some clients @didntyou i cheerfully explain (via email so it’s evidenced) that I don’t use my personal phone for business matters and remind them of how they can message me. I then block them on WhatsApp etc and if they communicate with me on anything I’ve asked them not to ignore / delete it.

I’ve been self employed a long time and the client /phone boundaries was one of the first things I set in stone.

the main thing is enforcing it after you’ve set it.

I now use a different app for clients (Voxer)/ email - that’s their lot.

This!

If I need a phone for work then the employer needs to provide one. I'm not gonna spend my own money for devises used at work. I have work hours and work phone is on during those times. Other times they don't need to contact me. Only people I know regarding use their personal devices for work are self employed. Even those with 24/7 availability and personal.l number for work has handsets provided by employer.

I dont mind this so I'm not speaking for myself, but if I was you I'd ignore calls from them, just point blank ignore. And any messages that come through, I wouldn't reply and I'd reply through email the next day and say sorry you were busy so only just getting chance to answer at work. You do that each time, and they'll take the hint after the same thing happening twice.

Tell them.
Dear manager
"I kindly request that you refrain from sending messages to my personal number, as it is meant for personal use only. Please direct any professional communication to my work number or email address."

Just tell them it is your personal mobile and not to share or use it unless for an emergency for yourself. ( work should have emergency contact for you anyway)

If they message out side of work hours then ignore and reply back by email and iterate any work communication needs to come through official channels....

It really isn't hard even if you don't like the job .. be matter of a fact and polite about it. They may not realise you don't like it

Contact them by email or ftf. Say it seems that your personal number has somehow been shared with a number of work colleagues which bothers you somewhat/a lot. This being the case you’re blocking all work colleagues on the phone to simplify things. If they do have your details you’d appreciate it if they deleted them.

How do I fix this? I don't feel like I can tell them to delete my phone number as it's been going on for so long, and don't really want to change my number because of the hassle involved. Any ideas?

Easy. Block them.

@didntyou - In relation to this point you raised in one of your earlier posts:
"I could block them and say I've changed my number but then what happens if they ask for my new number? I'm also concerned that the second person in particular may pass my number on to others if they ask, not maliciously, simply because they don't see the issue and would be more than happy for anyone to have their phone number."
You simply say that as it is your personal private number that they have contacted you on about work queries/issues, you don't respond to them. They have an alternative contact method - email - that they can get you on instead.

If someone passes on your number to someone else, without checking with you first, you have a bigger issue than just taking work calls on your personal mobile, and I would have no issues with blocking every single one of those people if they did that. Just because they might not see an issue with it, you do, so your wishes should be followed in that case.

This happened to me. Added to
laods of work related WhatsApp groups which infuriated me.

easy fix - got an old mobile in a drawer? Get a free payg sim, tell them you’ve got a new number, give them the number of that Sim and if you like, keep that phone turned on in work hours only. Block them on the other number.

Don’t answer any calls or WhatsApp’s about work when you aren’t there or if you do make it a simple “I will deal with this when I’m next in” no further communication

Can't you just ignore their messages if you are not at work and if they ask just say you don't pick up work messages when you are not at work.
It was common when I was at work for people to share their phone numbers because we didn't all work on the same site and it was often necessary to contact each other when going to meetings etc. I understand it will look odd if you say you don't want them to contact you on your phone and may make things difficult but I think it's perfectly ok to ignore out of work time messages

I agree she needs to tell them, but this is a very formal email. I'd go with something more like what others have said, much more like 'hi [manager name], I've noticed you have WhatsApp'd me on my personal mobile number a few times. I am trying to maintain good work/life boundaries and would prefer to keep work stuff away from my own phone. Would it be possible to please email or Teams call me instead? Thanks!'

Definitely do not just block her without saying something somehow. It's becoming more and more normal to use WhatsApp and texts for informal work comms, at my workplace anyone who wants one can have a work mobile although a lot of people esp the younger generation can't be bothered carrying around and charging two separate phones so many prefer to use their own, so it's not a crazy, heinous thought that this manager has had that OP wouldn't mind it. She's obviously wrong about that but I don't think she deserves to be pilloried as a result. If any of my team said to me actually I'd really prefer not to use WhatsApp/phone at all and can you email me instead, I'd be perfectly happy to do that but I'd most definitely be annoyed if someone missed a message because they'd just silently decided to block me without saying anything, that's just rude IMO.

I don’t have a work phone and we are expected to share our personal mobile numbers. If that’s the company culture not sure much you can do without it.

So you are going to continue tolerating what you say is the main problem - you hate seeing their names come up on your private phone screen.

Honestly this isn't hard OP:
"Hi colleagues, just letting you know that I'm no longer using this number for work calls, so when you need me please use whatsapp as standard? Thanks & best wishes."

Then block them.

This seems like the perfect solution. If they're that bothered about contacting you outside of work, they can give you a work phone, although from the level of contract you describe, I suspect email would be perfectly sufficient.

You could also just answer work messages in work time.

as a manager I wouldn’t dream of contacting someone on their private number who didn’t want to be contacted. If they didn’t tell me that they didn’t want to be contacted, how could I possibly know?