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?

The OP says that they do have one. But goodness knows what they're actually doing!

It's their day off.

If you want them to have a certain type of profile picture then your company needs to provide work phones

I think no company has any place dictating what profile picture an individual uses on their own personal WhatsApp.

If your company wants to portray a certain image they should be providing the devices and accounts for it. It really isn't very professional for clients to be contacting staff on their personal numbers either.

The most unprofessional thing here is expecting employees to use their personal mobile for something as important as client interactions.

They should be given a work phone, not have their personal phones and lives imposed upon.

But you still need the app on your phone or tablet to set up WhatsApp Web as you have to scan the QR code in the browser from the app on your phone?

It’s totally unreasonable for a company to demand this. These are their personal phone fgs. I hate the way work keeps trying to creep into personal time. People should be able to have a personal life!

Your company needs to provide phones, or at least SIMs so that they can have a separate work number. Giving clients personal numbers is the completely inappropriate bit, not the photos

I would absolutely not be on board with this - but I wouldn’t be on board with random clients having my personal contact to begin with.

You don’t know who’s who. We had months of perv phones coming into my workplace a few years ago. Imagine if that man ever got a hold of the employee’s personal contact.

Oh, I know you need a Whatsapp account (obviously). But you don't "need" the app.

Way back when, I worked on a project that looked at delivering desktop and mobile using a single source and the features of HTML5 to deal with rendering.

It’s probably not in budget, but I think giving people a work number and/or taking headshots would help to solve the issue. It does sound unprofessional to have essentially social media photos used in a work setting, but people should be able to use fun photos for their personal WhatsApp if they want to.
I use my personal number for work and I’ve had the same headshot on there for about 7 years because it looks professional but it’s annoying, sometimes I just want to change it to something fun or personal

It’s probably not in budget, but I think giving people a work number and/or taking headshots would help to solve the issue.

I insisted that IT took headshots for ID badges when I was in an education setting. Also all staff had to have a picture on the internal directory as across sites it was possible not everyone knew everyone else by sight. Especially the CEO who couldn't be there for every induction.

The ID badges fell into the data protection and cyber security that was my arse-in-a-sling responsibility.

I don’t think it’s acceptable to make them use their own personal phones.
Than try to dictate to them about personal profile photos?

This happens where I work but they are mainly very qualified middle aged women using what look like those good awful makeover photos from the 1990s (where they cover your eyes with blue shadow and your lips with no 17 twilight teaser) of them looking pensive holding onto a tree. It really is ridiculous and you wouldn’t recognise any of them in real life

Your company needs to supply work phones if its a problem. That said if I was using my own phone I would make sure the photo was appropriate. Even though I had a work phone when working lots of work people had my private number so I did not have a profile photo for years until I retired. My private life was private. I suppose too it depends what industry/environment you are in. But it is up to them, its their own phone. It is also very unprofessional and insecure to use whatsapp to share data. That is probably something you should raise.

But surely most phones can have 2 sims, so why do people need a second phone?

Security reasons.

My husband has downloaded WhatsApp on his work pc and uses his personal phone for teams etc

Does anyone know if this means IT can see his WhatsApp via his laptop?

I still don't understand why communication between employees and clients can't be via teams, or email?

Hell would freeze over before I allowed my work life to creep onto my personal number!

I agree with everyone who says they shouldn't be using Whatsapp and should be using email.

You have a data protection problem because the personal data of the clients is then being used by the staff individually on their own devices outside of your control.

You only have to look at the mess that politicians got into with Whatsapp disclosure during the Covid inquiry to know this is a really stupid idea for any business.

If you insist on using Whatsapp, then staff should be setting up professional WhatsApp profiles separate from their personal WhatsApp using a company device.

How would it work if they didn't have a mobile phone, I don't have one, how would the company handle that?

I can’t tell if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me 😬

I’m just saying my opinion is 2 phones are best, but if the OP’s company and coworkers are choosing the one phone thing there are options but IT needs to be involved (along with others).

I use this pic of Margaret Qualley for my profile pic at work. I also have a larger printed out one that I hold in front of my face for Teams calls. That one has a little cut out around the mouth so I can poke my tongue through...

It worked for Demi Moore in The Substance (I'm 58).

I have never looked WhatsApp profile pictures so if it was me I wouldn’t say anything about those but if the chat took an inappropriate turn I would either leave the chat straight away or challenge the comment.

Doesn’t surprise me. Ironically I think it’s because they are using their personal phones and WhatsApp is free for international communications.

It’s similar with manufacturers in Mexico my team used it for inter team communication (So nobody jumps on my ass I could not get work phones issued to my Mexico team despite it coming out of my budget… let’s just say there are some cultural issues there).

Both are what made me finally add it to my work phone.