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Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

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Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#141

Post by mooreds »

stilley2 wrote: post #82
kpwags wrote: post #21

This is certainly a very good reason to not put your work account on your personal phone, but my primary reason not to is that it's my device and I pay for the service. If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If there's an emergency, they can always call, but I don't like being "always on".

I recently got a new job where the email is completely locked down (only accessible on a networked computer or via the awful outlook web interface). It's been awesome not getting work emails on my phone.

I used to have work email and slack on my phone. While it made some things easier (heading out in the work day and not blocking people who might need my input, for example), it also made me feel tethered. Slack in particular was very addictive to me (to be fair, not just work slack, but other slacks which I was on).

When I got a new phone, I simply didn't install the email or slack clients. It's led to occasional text messages, when I really needed to communicate with a team member, but all in all has been a fantastic experience. Highly recommended.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#142

Post by tristor »

I work from home/remotely. For years I've followed a simple policy. I don't use work devices for personal use, and I don't connect my personal devices to any work accounts. I've never had an employer that's had a problem with this, and the most I've ever heard is comments about how I'm just inconveniencing myself because I carry two phones, two laptops. But the reality is, it's been extremely beneficial when I've had to work in compliance sensitive companies for exactly the reasons listed here and then some, and it's a minor inconvenience.

If you're a tech worker you can afford to buy your own personal equipment for personal use. If the company needs you to have equipment to do work, they can purchase it for you. Simple as that.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#143

Post by conradfr »

kpwags wrote: post #21

This is certainly a very good reason to not put your work account on your personal phone, but my primary reason not to is that it's my device and I pay for the service. If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If there's an emergency, they can always call, but I don't like being "always on".

Basically I have my Gmail work account on my phone but I'm syncing it manually, only when I want/need to consult it.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#144

Post by avh02 »

helen___keller wrote: post #41
cj wrote: post #34

Our company uses G Suite's Advanced MDM on a G Suite Enterprise account. I administer its configuration. Unless I'm missing something, there's not an obvious way to "spy" on employees, which this article is claiming. Perhaps it's possible, but if it is, it would require a lot of deliberate effort to accomplish. For example, there's not an out of the box way to track employee location. There's not a way to track emplo…

>There's not a way to track employee internet browsing history out of the box. Some large enterprises use MDM to deploy certificates and proxy policies that essentially force you into a MitM situation, with the intention of tracking browser usage. Location is a bit more tricky. I would say that's less common, but I've seen MDM solutions that offer location tracking as a feature

If I remember correctly, even the isolated work profile can add certificates on android. Probably the only reason I don't use that either.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#145

Post by celticmusic »

crazygringo wrote: post #120
kpwags wrote: post #21

This is certainly a very good reason to not put your work account on your personal phone, but my primary reason not to is that it's my device and I pay for the service. If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If there's an emergency, they can always call, but I don't like being "always on".

> If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If you're salaried then they are paying you for it based on the job requirements, it's part of the job and one of the things that separates hourly employees from salaried ones. Unless you're talking about the cost of your cell plan or device? But even then, a lot of companies will pay for your plan and subsidize part/all of your devi…

no.

Salary is a payment schedule, that's it. Anything else requires contractual agreement.

The fact that you think it gives companies the right to demand irregular hours is more about your mindset than reality.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#146

Post by the_watcher »

stilley2 wrote: post #82
kpwags wrote: post #21

This is certainly a very good reason to not put your work account on your personal phone, but my primary reason not to is that it's my device and I pay for the service. If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If there's an emergency, they can always call, but I don't like being "always on".

I recently got a new job where the email is completely locked down (only accessible on a networked computer or via the awful outlook web interface). It's been awesome not getting work emails on my phone.

One of the things I miss most about my previous BigCo job was only being able access work tools via my work phone. I could go on vacation and tell my team that I wasn't taking my work phone or computer (I needed a corporate VPN installed on my work computer to access anything internal) and everyone knew I was completely unreachable.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#147

Post by stunt »

conradfr wrote: post #143
kpwags wrote: post #21

This is certainly a very good reason to not put your work account on your personal phone, but my primary reason not to is that it's my device and I pay for the service. If my company needs me to be available beyond my 9-5 workday, they can pay for it. If there's an emergency, they can always call, but I don't like being "always on".

Basically I have my Gmail work account on my phone but I'm syncing it manually, only when I want/need to consult it.

Yes, I do the same for the same reason. Fetch Manually instead of default Push or Fetch.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#148

Post by eschneider »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #102

Funny story (well OK, not so funny), I worked at a company where the FBI decided to pay a visit and investigate some potential naughtiness performed by members of the senior staff. They asked questions such as "Do you use your cell phone and personal email for company matters." Guess what a lot of them said, "Yep, have to." That immediately made their personal equipment, etc. in scope for the investigation and they c…

Nothing focuses the mind on sensible email retention policies like working at a company where all the email got subpoenaed.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#149

Post by RHSeeger »

> When you add a work email address to your phone, you’ll likely be asked to install something called a Mobile Device Management (MDM) profile.

My wife was asked to do this, and (and a discussion with me explaining what that means) she told them they could buy her a phone if they wanted that.

The company I work for does not require it, and I agree to have email and slack on my phone. They don't reach out to me on off hours unless there's a very good reason.

Re: Don’t Put Your Work Email on Your Personal Phone

#150

Post by syn0byte »

godshatter wrote: post #93
cannonedhamster wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally MDM software swallows up everything. It's been a while since I managed an MDM instance but we could track everywhere the employee went by default and when I suggested we turn it off there wasn't an option nor did management want to. We could see every app pretty much everything on the device. I will never install MDM on my phone after managing it. I've also seen phones accidentally wiped. Back up your phone…

Does turning off location on your phone mitigate their tracking of where employees go? I realize the other problems are still there, but I'm wondering if that would help. I turn on location on my phone once in a blue moon when an app gets too damn annoying that I actually need to use right then.

Depends on the MDM and phone really but, No. Triangulating a cellphone on the network via cell towers is a tried and true feature of wireless infrastructure. Even your phones GPS capabilities are most likely "A-GPS" meaning Cellular Assisted; It'll use cell location data when GPS satilites are slow/unavailable.

GPS toggle isn't doing much of anything besides application permissions enforcement.

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