By Will Sturgeon, 28 June 2004 15:10
NEWS Very few companies are giving staff mobile phones as a standard 'perk' or even as a work necessity.
Research from silicon.com has revealed that a massive 43.3 per cent of IT workers adopt an almost incredulous 'I'd be lucky' attitude when asked about their company's mobile phone policy, despite the multitude of reasons why such a policy is necessary.
One IT Director told silicon.com: "The difference between work time and personal time is so blurred now, especially for staff who have out-of-hours support responsibilities. Rightly or wrongly, managers now expect most of their staff to be contactable in the event of an urgent business problem and it's a bit much to expect the employees to pay for this 'privilege'."
He added: "If staff use their personal mobiles for work then either the employee has to spend valuable time working out what to claim from their call logs or companies pay the whole bill, which means they pay top rates for minutes. If work mobiles are provided then the company can get the benefits of lower costs but users need to have clear guidelines about what is acceptable personal usage outside the workplace.
Even with those companies who do offer staff a work mobile phone, there is no consensus over who should manage such a scheme.
The most common answer, chosen by almost a quarter of respondents (24.8 per cent), was the IT department - adding yet another task to the 'to do' lists of put-upon techies.
Ten per cent of respondents said the scheme should be managed by the HR department, in keeping with other 'perks' and bonuses, while 3.8 per cent said the finance department should be responsible, in keeping with other expenses claims.
Adding further confusion to the issue, 8.6 per cent of respondents said each department head is responsible for ensuring their staff have a phone.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
There is the problem of what is classed or deemed as personal use. But then there is also the problem of who pays for what. The company I work for used to supply Mobile phones for department heads and support staff. Setting up a contract with 300 free minutes a month. But unfortuantly, a couple of the people abused the 'Perk', rather than penalising the staff involved, they blanketed the whole company and everyone now is expected to pay for their own mobile phone. Unfortuantly for the company, and others like it, who decide on this route, they now have support staff that more often than not are not contactable. Be very wary of the Mobile Phone 'Perk', it is not a perk, it is a mill stone. And eventually a very expensive one.
2. Barry Haeger
How can a work mobile be a perk? You're required to have a phone on your desk when in the office - is that a perk? So when you're away from the office and you're office or customers want to have telephone contact why shopuld the employee pay for the privillage? Many of the people I come into contact with have two mobile phones; one for business and one full feature phone for personal! So run that pass me again, clearly I'm missing something, I have to carry two phones and my two year old work mobile is a perk! - no sorry I can't see it!
3. Andy Holcombe
Businesses cannot pretend that mobile technology isn't revolutionising the way they function - from mobile phone usage, to the rollout of XDAs to fleets of salesmen and technicians, to businessmen accessing their emails on their blackberries and using Wi-Fi on laptops and PDAs - mobility is a fact of contemporary corporate existence.
The reluctance of companies to pay for their employees to use mobile services is obviously understandable, but it's just not acceptable. Neither alternative presented here for managing the wireless use - going through the bill call by call for manual expensing, or setting out and enforcing "acceptable use" policies - is even close to ideal.
The solution here is to implement an effective and holistic "wireless asset management" strategy, which will enable companies to track and manage employee mobile communications cost. If this isn't done, the benefits of a mobile workforce will be lost, or, an equally damaging situation, the unmanaged mobilisation of a business' workers could end up costing their employers a fortune.
Operators need to take the incentive here, and provide the facilities corporates need to implement a wireless asset management strategy; from web-self service applications to electronic billing analysis. This is an opportunity for operators to differentiate from their competitors and become more mission-critical to their corporate customers.
4. Andy Holcombe, Netonomy
Businesses cannot pretend that mobile technology isn't revolutionising the way they function - from mobile phone usage, to the rollout of XDAs to fleets of salesmen and technicians, to businessmen accessing their emails on their blackberries and using Wi-Fi on laptops and PDAs - mobility is a fact of contemporary corporate existence.
The reluctance of companies to pay for their employees to use mobile services is obviously understandable, but it's just not acceptable. Neither alternative presented here for managing the wireless use - going through the bill call by call for manual expensing, or setting out and enforcing "acceptable use" policies - is even close to ideal.
The solution here is to implement an effective and holistic "wireless asset management" strategy, which will enable companies to track and manage employee mobile communications cost. If this isn't done, the benefits of a mobile workforce will be lost, or, an equally damaging situation, the unmanaged mobilisation of a business' workers could end up costing their employers a fortune.
Operators need to take the incentive here, and provide the facilities corporates need to implement a wireless asset management strategy; from web-self service applications to electronic billing analysis. This is an opportunity for operators to differentiate from their competitors and become more mission-critical to their corporate customers.
5. Andrew Edgar
There are many independent companies and consultancies that provide free advice on mobile tariffs and services. Bill and usage analysis is also offered, together with advice on company mobile phone policy etc. Not only can considerable cost savings be invariably acheived, the management burden can be significantly reduced. I suggest readers take advantage of these services!