Profile pictures at work

[rhino12345]

Wondered if I could run this past the "hive mind" to get various perspectives before I bring this up in a meeting I have later in the week with our HR director. We've never had this issue before so I'm wondering if I'm just getting old fashioned or if I'm being reasonable with this.

Work for a very large company that has a regular intake of "younger" staff members (we have a very competitive grad scheme plus a very good internship scheme so about 30-40% of our workforce are under 25).

We use Whatsapp, not always, but sometimes at our client's request to share information ahead of meetings or presentations, as well as for occasional internal comms too. These Whatsapp chats are linked to our employees' personal phones and thus personal Whatsapp profiles.

It's made very clear to staff that they'll be expected to use their own personal Whatsapp profiles when they start and they are asked to ensure that profile pictures and names are "professional". They are given a small amount of training on this (usually it's things like nothing overtly political), but as I said, up until now it's always been self-explanatory and there haven't been issues in the past at all.

Here is my AIBU - some of the profile pictures that the newer cohort of staff are using I find are inappropriate and thus unprofessional, but I'm not sure if I'm just being prudish or old-fashioned.

A large number of them have pictures that would be more appropriate on a dating app than for a work environment if I'm being totally honest (boys posing in a gym mirror with a tight vest on, or even on the beach topless with just a pair of shorts on holding a pint of beer, or girls with a full length picture wearing a short skirt or taken from above looking down their cleavage). Some of them have friends in a profile picture where they're all pulling a silly face which I think makes them look very immature and childish, when in reality they're professional people in their 20s working in a very competitive industry who earn a very good salary!!

In my view, it just comes across unprofessional, and makes me cringe when I add them to the chats with our clients who are often CEOs or CFOs of huge multinational companies. It even makes me cringe when I'm adding them to internal chats with colleagues to organise internal events etc!

I've run it past a couple of people outside of work, mostly senior people in similar corporate environments, who've said these sorts of pictures for a work environment are totally inappropriate, but then when I've mentioned it at work to colleagues (not formally, just in passing) I've been looked at like I'm some sort of dinosaur!

AIBU?

Yes the pictures are unprofessional but that’s because these are their personal phones. It’s even more unprofessional to be asking and expecting people to use their personal phones for work and then policing their private photos. Provide them with work phones and then you’ll have a leg to stand on. This is CF by the company in my opinion,

I agree with this too. There is absolutely no need for WhatsApp whatsoever. Emails are far more professional.

It's inappropriate to have employees use their personal phones for work.

This may be a cumbersome workaround and I would suggest getting your IT involved to help solve this. But here goes... you can use a second number in whatsapp essentially having two numbers a business one and a personal one. However it's not exactly straightforward because you need a non-VOIP second number.

I'm a little surprised about the pushback from the second phone though. While it's a PITA to carry two a lot of people (I'm in the US) prefer two phones as a protection. Where I am if the company is sued a personal phone with work connections can be subpoenaed and used in court opening up all your personal data into potential evidence. Maybe it's different in the UK?

You could possibly get them a phone number and associated WhatsApp and they just use it via computer desktop WhatsApp so they don’t have to carry round a second phone

we have lots of clients that insist on using WhatsApp weirdly but we provide everyone with a corporate phone and a corporate photo to use

This may be a cumbersome workaround and I would suggest getting your IT involved to help solve this.

When I was IT manager I would have raised seven shades of hell if management required staff to use personal phones. Quite aside from the total lack of control over any sensitive data, and having fuck all idea what malware might be living on the devices, there would be question of providing support.

And all of this assumes all staff have suitable devices in the first place.

(There is an irony that in the last place I worked, everybody hated having a work phone, as it was 2 things to carry into the office ....)

Using personal phones for work also raises an issue of work requiring certain apps on personal phones.

I don't have Whatsapp because it's Meta owned and I don't want their shit anywhere near me.

Maybe you can bring up how unprofessional it is that the company expect their employees to use WhatsApp especially their personal WhatsApp.

I would absolutely refuse any client conversation with my personal number, it gives people the impression you are available 24/7. But my company provide work phones.

I'm with you but this seems to be acceptable at the OPs company otherwise they'd still be issuing phones. At my company at first everyone was told to just use their work phone as a personal phone so that's what a lot of people did, then it was the senior leadership that set the trend for the two phones thing.

For a long time my company would not issue a BYOD policy and would not support work apps and usage on personal devices but eventually even they relented. The caveat was that you had to have their authentications and security and they reserved the right to wipe your personal device.

So I think most companies now just accept that it's going to happen and mitigate the risks.

Oh and I think the whatsapp ship has sailed and it's becoming more and more common and accepted in work settings.

I found that working with overseas companies, especially Asian companies, (again I'm US) has really precipitated this change.

Insane to be expecting staff to use their personal phones for work communications. Quite apart from the professionalism aspect, that creates all sorts of issues around work-life balance, GDPR, cyber security etc. What a mess!!

They should be using WhatsApp for Business on company devices.

I 100% would not be using my own phone number or personal WhatsApp for work related messages.

You shouldn't be using personal phones, we have work phones and some complain that they don't want 2 and hate android, we are not giving iPhones. But, it's tough! In order to have our cyber grading, I need all phones in policy, that means that our IT support can take control of the phone, wipe it remotely and block it. Trust me, when faced with the choice of having either their personal phones, controlled and visible to the IT support, the appetite for having 2 phones and android rapidly increased.

Personally, I like the ability to turn my work phone off!

There are many ways you can deliver 19th century company communications if you like that do not involve apps on phones. However it#s axiomatic that a shit company will also be shit at IT. Stands to reason.

Last time I dabbled in BYOD, the company were quite happy to "support" it as long as the employee installed a Mobile Device Management endpoint on their device. The problem with this approach is it exposed the company to liability if the employees devices was bricked by the MDM software.

There was also the problem that the MDM software chosen seemed to break every app employees used personally - especially banking ones.

Admittedly this was pre-COVID. But there's nothing new in the tech since then.

Using whatsapp, and what device to use it on are two separate toilet bowls of shit.

Yes a lot of our clients who request Whatsapp are Asia based companies (Vietnam and Singapore based typically)

You'd have thought they'd be more into modern tech, really.

Interesting about people suggesting Whatsapp on their desktop computers only - again, this is somewhat blurred with a large proportion of people working hybrid, but I wasn't aware this was an option. I am far far away from the IT/tech side of the business so this is all a mystery to me - we do have a compliance team who are usually pretty on it with these sorts of things so I'm surprised it's never come up before as being an issue.

Yeah I agree with everyone else, if the company requires them to use their personal numbers for whatsapp they can't expect to police employees' profile pictures. If they want to control what kind of photos people use they need to provide work phones/numbers. There's not a chance in hell I'd use my personal number/whatsapp for work purposes.

I have work colleagues on whatsapp and instagram but they're also friends and we talk outside work.

You don’t need multiple phone handset, just business what’s app which is a diffferebt app and desktop which gives a second number

Why the fuck would anyone run anything on a phone or tablet if there was a desktop version available ? Obviously if you in a role where you move from location to location a mobile device makes sense.

But at a desk ? In the office ? You don't even need an app (although they really try to get you to install one).

https://web.whatsapp.com/

But installed on a personal phone ?

No thank you.

Your compliance team sound like they don't have a clue what they're doing!

I think you are rather hopeful there is a compliance team.

Your organisation should provide company mobiles if staff are expected to use WA for work.

I have separate WA profiles attached to personal and business phone numbers/emails.