To not want to be expected to give my personal number to my team for work purposes

[swimdog]

I have recently started my first line management role. I manage a team of about half a dozen people in the Civil Service. Part of my job involves managing annual leave requests, sickness, one to one meetings with my team etc.

This week I have been told that I will not receive a work mobile and need to give my team my personal number for use if they need to phone in sick. I was advised to tell my team not to use my personal phone number for any other reason. Other equivalent grade managers in my office do have a work mobile, but policy has changed between their start date and mine, and work phones are no longer provided to new managers.

AIBU to be unhappy with this arrangement? It's not that I don't trust my team; I honestly don't think they would abuse having access to my personal number. It's the principle of it that bothers me - I don't want to be expected to mix work and personal life on my own phone. I don't need a smartphone like the other managers have, literally just a basic 'brick' phone with call functionality would be perfectly fine. Surely it's not fair that other managers don't have to give out their personal number to their teams while I do? I also don't want to be in the situation where a member of my team forgets I'm off on annual leave and phones me to tell me they're sick while I'm sunning myself in the south of France! (I wish!)

AIBU?

I was expected to use my personal mobile for these sickness type calls and buddy systems etc in a public sector job.
It became very complicated when they introduced a new IT policy covering the use of our personal phones. Basically the employer had to approve my personal phone for work use and asked me to sign up giving them permission to delete the data if my phone was lost.
I absolutely refused and they eventually gave me a work phone, it may be a good idea to ask to see their policy on personal phone usage.

YANBU at all.

Your work needs to change it's policy or change its resources.
I think it is right they don't issue phones if you don't need them for your job - it would be ridiculous for ta payers to be paying for phones for every 10th person in the Civil Service when they aren't needed to do the role but they need to acknowledge that and say people have to e-mail you.

I've got my Manager's personal number, and she has mine, and that's fine, because we have chosen to do so, but that is very different from being told that we have to.

My team of 10 have mine - I’d rather they text me than ring me as I often don’t log in until after 9. Text me and I can text back to acknowledge receipt without really disturbing them. Leave me a voicemail and I might have to call back if there’s something I need to check up on or clarify which is more disruptive. They’d also have to log in to their laptops to Teams me and I’d rather they didn’t have to do that either when feeling unwell.

I have zero other business need for a work mobile phone so it would be a waste of money for the sake of a couple of texts a month to insist on one. I do refuse to install Teams or Outlook on my personal device though as I really would never switch off if I did.

Get them to.ring on teams then.

Completely agree. Not a big deal, I have no idea why you're making it one.

Some businesses, like OPs, don't accept anything other than a personal voice call.

Why do you assume that everywhere works the same as your business?

OP, why not give them your landline number (if you have one) that you probably don't have a phone attached to?!

If work require you to be available on a phone line to deal with work related issues, then they need to provide the equipment to allow you to do so at their cost.

You may not have a personal phone.
You may be in the habit of turning off your personal phone for various reasons.
You pay for your personal phone for personal use - it is not something that you pay for to allow the Governmenf to use.

You can give an undertaking that the work phone will only be used for work purposes and not for personal calls etc.

But for GDPR, proper government accounting, security reasons, cyber security protection, etc, quite apart from the bloody cheek, there are many reasons why you should not be using a personal phone for work purposes, especially in the civil service.

Strewth, I find this really odd; having a second phone costs, and god knows how much the government spend on these. Everyone I've ever worked with has my mobile; imagine what the government could do if they weren't paying for pointless extra stuff. I've heard plenty about the government sector being unproductive, if this is the mindset it begins to explain it. Most of my work contacts have my phone, I'd only ask for a seperate phone if I worked somewhere people were likely to phone loads and possibly abuse it, the policy has been changed for good reason.

You can’t just give people access to government IT systems via personal phones. My work phone has all the same functionality as my laptop, I can access all my work systems there, and I work away from an office about three days a week. So I can’t have all that on a personal phone which isn’t controlled by my employer. Also, all the members of the public I work with get my number so they can contact me when I am expected to be visiting and working with them, and there’s no way they should have access to my personal number for that. I’m also a lone worker so they have a duty to have ways to keep me safe, one of which is giving me a phone to use when working remotely.

None of that is unnecessary, and I know how little the phones cost on a government tariff. You have no idea how much public sector work actually costs if you think mobile telephony makes a difference to anything.

I'm obviously out of the work loop here but don't you have an office phone anymore? The old fashioned type where people (outsiders or different departments) call up and ask for extension 123? How to contractors such as IT, maintenance, photocopier/printer personnel etc contact you?

I would refuse to give out my personal mobile phone number to anyone particularly if it was demanded by management that I do. I would dig my heels in on this one.
They can provide you with the necessary tools to do your work or it doesn't get done, or they can begin to accept the wonders of modern technology and start accepting notifications by Teams or whatever tool you have at your disposal.

Unless they decide that they want to pay your phone bill then the number associated with it is yours.

I’m in the civil service and we give every staff in management a work mobile. I personally choose to give my personal number to my team (and have on my signature) but that’s my choice. I’d never suggest anyone did the same and if any of my managers did this I’d be having words

I agree with you but I can also see it's a total waste of money to give most managers a mobile phone.

Do you have an old one you could put a SIM in and only use for work?

Ask for a virtual landline number that diverts to your mobile phone. Your phone will typically insert some numbers in front of their number so you know who is calling but also it's a 'work' call as opposed to anyone else.

I’m in the MoD Civil Service, and have only given my personal number to specific people.

We changed from fixed landline telephones to individual 0300 Skype numbers (they will be migrated to Teams at a later date) and due to the need of a headset can only receive calls when logged on

I have it configured for ‘dual ringing’, therefore if I am away from my laptop, not plugged in my headset or not even logged on I can answer on my personal mobile. (Forwarded calls show as a witheld number - so I may click to answer but not speak, as part of screening spam calls, but spam calls mostly have a number now rather than witheld
In my profile I have my official contact details listed, plus my personal mobile number stored as unlisted

I have the dual ring set within a defined time range, but it can be set for 24 hours, turned on/off etc

Business phones should be provided as required, and if a sick reporting process relies on calling in then it is required. The lack of funding etc enabling phones to no longer be required means that the sick reporting call in is not required.
(Note that there would be GDPR issues not only with sharing personal numbers, but if someone texted you about being sick then you are processing / holding personal data on a private device)

Nope - work is work and personal life is just that - see HR

This happened to me except a phone was also essential to do my job. I simply refused & eventually clients kept complaining they couldn't get hold of me so bosses relented.
It's idiotic.

We don't, at the minute we don't even have a workplace!
On day 1 I was given my managers phone number and added to the work WhatsApp
If you're off sick you have to ring (not text or email) the manager

nope. Data protection rules cover this. Work mobile or they have to find an alternative solution

Because it's a certainty people will use it for other purposes as well.

That said - if push came to shove I'd get a second SIM card/e-SIM specifically for this purpose.

this is the point, i think. We have a BYOT policy at work which covers a similar thing - they must have access to your phone and can delete.

Having said that: we don't have phones at all. not on our desk and not work mobiles. (some people share their numbers, but that is on a one-to-one basis and nobody ever gives those to anyone else) We do have Teams on our phones, and i can access my work emails, but those are the only two things, and you can only access them as long as you are logged in from the company domain, which you lose if you leave. And that is it.

Nobody gets my personal phone number unless i want to give it to them.

You can’t just give people access to government IT systems via personal phones.

You can. There's software, from Microsoft and others, that divide the memory on your phone into "work" and "personal" spaces. You access your work networks from the work side, personal carries on as normal. Neither half can "see" the other so there's no security risk. I also work for the (Irish) government and there are thousands of personal phones set up this way.

I would definitely NOT give out my personal number in this capacity.

My latest manager did give me her personal number, but I was her only direct report, and I’m a trustworthy employee that doesn’t take the piss. On the 2 occasions when I had to be off sick, I logged on and messaged her boss on teams, because my boss was on holiday.

Previously, I’ve texted my boss’ work phone, or emailed, or the department has a ‘duty phone’ to call into.

Refuse to give your personal number op.

I also refuse to have my work email on my personal phone.

No way would I do this. I know far too many women who've been harassed/stalked by male colleagues after giving their number. But mainly I just wouldn't want any work related calls outside the time I am being paid to work.

How does your office phone system work? Ours allows you to install an app on your phone and then acts just like the extension on your desk. If you had similar, staff can call your office phone instead of your mobile and it's up to you then when you log in or out of the app.

I wouldn't be happy about giving your personal number out either in your situation.