Nearly half the UK workforce is currently working from home, according to new stats from the Office for National Statistics.
With home working on the rise, and remote working increasingly thought to be a big part of the “new normal”, more questions are being asked about how businesses will deal with remote employees.
This is particularly true when it comes to communications.
Bring Your Own Device has been popular with some businesses, because they see it as a good way to save money by asking employees to use their personal devices, rather than relying on getting equipment from the business.
But is it really fair to expect employees to use their personal equipment to do work for you?
Here, we look at why you should have dedicated business phones to prepare for tomorrow’s remote world of working.
Your employees can keep their personal numbers private
We’ve all seen the line between work and home blur significantly in the last few months.
For a lot of us, our “office” is now just a few short steps from our bed.
Expecting employees to also start publicising their personal numbers to clients or customers is another big step that encroaches on their personal life.
Should you really expect your employees to expose their personal life to late night client calls?
Or displaying their personal numbers on their company profiles?
No, you shouldn’t.
By having a dedicated business mobile phone, your employees can get all the benefits of remote and home work, while maintaining some boundaries between work and their personal life.
Maintain your business hours
Another issue with remote working, is trying to avoid the feeling that you’re at work and available, even when you’re at home.
If your employees are using their personal mobile phones for work, they are going to feel constantly chained to their job.
By giving your employees a business mobile phone, they can have a device during the day for business communications, that they can put in a desk at the end of their work day and not feel like they’re attached to their emails 24/7.
Increase security
If you’re expecting your employees to carry out work on their personal mobile phones, you need to be aware that their personal habits could have an impact on the security of your company.
As consumers, we don’t have high levels of security on our phones and often think nothing of logging onto an unsecured wifi network when we’re travelling.
By investing in a business mobile phone, you can set strict rules over how the phones can be used to protect your company’s data and information, without placing restrictions on how employees can use their personal devices.
Better tech support
We all have problems with our phones at some point.
Either an update changes something that we don’t know how to fix, or we drop our phone and smash the screen.
If your employees are using their personal phones and something goes wrong, there’s nothing you can do.
You don’t have any tech support to solve a problem.
And if an update wipes some critical business information from the phone, there’s nothing you can do.
If they break the phone, you or they will face a costly bill to replace it.
However, if you’ve invested in business mobile phones, you’ll get access to a dedicated tech support team who can help you resolve problems quickly, or get a replacement phone sent out to you immediately.
What happens when they change phones?
If you’re expecting employees to use their personal mobile phones for work, you have no control over when they upgrade their phone, or if they decide to change their number.
Your employees aren’t going to choose a phone that’s best for work.
They’re picking a personal device that meets the needs of their own life.
And if that means changing their number, so be it.
If they do, you’ll have a hassle informing your clients and customers that the number has changed. Not to mention updating any and all profiles that are now out of date.
And then you run the risk of a customer calling a number that isn’t in use anymore.
If you invest in a business mobile phone, you can at least be confident that your employees can’t change their work number.
Need help choosing the right business phone?
If you think you’d benefit from investing in business mobile phones, we’re here to help.
We’re a provider of O2 business phones and have a team of people ready to help you make the best choice for your company.
Whether you’re looking to get your first business phone or are looking to upgrade your current handset or deal, you can get in touch with us.
Not convinced it’s worth investing in business phones for your company?
Take our free cost savings calculator to find out how much you could save.
