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Work email on your smartphone

circatee

circatee

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Original poster
Nov 30, 2014
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Sometimes, as in this instance, I feel so awkward.
Not sure why exactly, but, it has just dawned on me. From an employee perspective, there is no law or employee handbook ruling that says you must have your work email on your smartphone.

Why do we subject ourselves by having work email on our smartphones? Even more so, when certain companies do not pay a phone allowance.

My career is in IT, and well, I just presumed it came naturally to have my work email on my phone.
Over the past few months, there has been a change afoot, at work. And, well, it is causing me to pay even closer attention to things. In addition to now asking the question about work email on any personal device.

Thoughts
 
ivanwi11iams said:
Sometimes, as in this instance, I feel so awkward.
Not sure why exactly, but, it has just dawned on me. From an employee perspective, there is no law or employee handbook ruling that says you must have your work email on your smartphone.

Why do we subject ourselves by having work email on our smartphones? Even more so, when certain companies do not pay a phone allowance.

My career is in IT, and well, I just presumed it came naturally to have my work email on my phone.
Over the past few months, there has been a change afoot, at work. And, well, it is causing me to pay even closer attention to things. In addition to now asking the question about work email on any personal device.

Thoughts
Click to expand...

Work email on a company computer, or, by using outlook to access it on your own computer is one thing. Emails on a phone quite another.

Actually, I don't use my iPhone for emails, - in general, I deeply dislike smartphones and touch screen technology, - and would profoundly disagree with the idea that my own personal phone should play host to a work email.
 
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I have never read a single work e-mail in all my years. Not one. I remember 20 years back, one of the suits (VP of something or another) asked my boss if I had read the e-mail he sent me. E-mail? Why the hail would a repair tech need an e-mail account? I have no say in business direction. I had nothing to add to the discussion. If a co-worker needed a computer fixed, they called me on the phone. The most important decision of the day for me was whether to double-flush or hold down the handle for a particularly stubborn floater.:D

But big companies require EVERYONE to have an e-mail account, even the janitors and security guy walking outside. Worked their for 5 years and never even knew I had a corporate e-mail.:oops:

Anyhow, even if e-mail is your life's blood in business, it has no place on your personal phone. You gotta keep work and personal life separate. No one ever regretted not working enough on their deathbed.
 
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robbieduncan said:
Because it allows me some flexibility to be away from the office and still answer email. If I couldn't do that I might have to stay at my desk
Click to expand...

Yep, same for me, and my company is __my__ company, so I don't mind blending business, personal, etc., all together - in fact, that's how I carefully engineered my life, so I can really control what/where/when I choose to do business.

OP, one thing you might do to help sort of isolate the flow of work email (if you do decide to set it up on your personal device), and that's use a totally separate email client. Maybe it's just the Web UI, maybe it's Gmail where you use Apple Mail (the iOS default app) for personal stuff.
 
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D.T. said:
OP, one thing you might do to help sort of isolate the flow of work email (if you do decide to set it up on your personal device), and that's use a totally separate email client. Maybe it's just the Web UI, maybe it's Gmail where you use Apple Mail (the iOS default app) for personal stuff.
Click to expand...

This is actually enforced for us as we have to use Blackberry Work to access work email although I believe we are looking at changing that to Outlook via some sort of corporate Office 365 at some point
 
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To be clear, I have the Outlook app, setup on my iOS devices for work email.
Just rather weird that it has only now dawned on me, why I even have it in the first place. More than likely, due to me being in IT, I felt almost compelled to be 'connected' to work.

Having said all that, I certainly do not check my work email on my personal devices, as much as I used to years ago.
I guess now, I am just looking at things from another angle.
 
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I am not saying this is the case for you, but make sure if you do decide to put your work emails on your personal device there are no legal requirements for that device.

There is a reason my line of profession, we are issued a phone and discouraged from using our own phones to do work on. The big one, is anything used during the course of our duty can and has been called into court and or used as evidence. So anything on that phone can be used and gone through. We have to sign a contract if we use our own phone letting us know the risks etc, not to mention our IT group puts software on it for remote cleaning etc. They basically cripple your device, certain websites are blocked etc. Again, this might not matter to you or your line of work.

Prior to this job, I used to have my work email on my own phone because they would not give us a phone and I could then use it as a tax write off... Not to mention my internet at home since I was able to VPN in (prior to office 365) and log into a computer to work on my documents etc from home.
 
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I have work email on my personal cellphone and iPad. But all notifications are turned OFF so I only check it when I want to on those devices. (Google Apps). Makes it really easy to send coworkers things that don't send easily on Teams at the press of a few buttons in meetings, etc.

But yep, notifications off. I only check it if I want to... which... is very rarely.
 
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ivanwi11iams said:
Sometimes, as in this instance, I feel so awkward.
Not sure why exactly, but, it has just dawned on me. From an employee perspective, there is no law or employee handbook ruling that says you must have your work email on your smartphone.

Why do we subject ourselves by having work email on our smartphones? Even more so, when certain companies do not pay a phone allowance.

My career is in IT, and well, I just presumed it came naturally to have my work email on my phone.
Over the past few months, there has been a change afoot, at work. And, well, it is causing me to pay even closer attention to things. In addition to now asking the question about work email on any personal device.

Thoughts
Click to expand...

If not mandated then it’s optional, right?

Depending on one’s role there’s a convenience to having business access away from the office without having to carry a laptop or a secondary phone everywhere in case of an emergency.

Some companies require you grant them the ability to wipe your phone remotely if you choose to use your own device. I would not grant them that permission.
 
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Convenience and flexibility is the reason to have it for my current role. I don't have to be sat at my desktop logged-on properly in order to do my job and its easy to just deal with some emails straight away when they come in.

I can see how some people would feel pressure by having work emails on a personal device so its not for everyone and certainly shouldn't be compulsory.
 
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All of my jobs since 2000 have been either two man or solo operations. My last job had me as the sole person to ensure that the newspaper got out to the printer and the sole person to respond to PC/Server issues at work. The entire business had 10-12 employees, including me and the bosses in that total.

If there were problems I needed to know. I'm not trying to be arrogant, but if I was out on a production day the whole operation grounded to a halt until I returned. There were no backup/cross-trained people to my position. If the server went down, no work got done until I fixed the problem.

Not having email on my phone would have meant several people not being able to do their work and my boss becoming panicked.

Finally, email on my phone makes my communications with my employer all on their domain. I use my work email when I email in sick, I use my work email when I discuss anything related to work with my employer. None of it crosses my personal email.
 
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It really depends on your role.

At my last corporate job, I declined to let the IT department configure my phone for work e-mail. I had no desire to get this type of communication on my phone; I really savored the strong separation between my work life and my personal life.

They actually offered to buy me a handset and pay for my cellular service. I also politely declined that offer.

At one point, I had VPN access and MS Remote Desktop capability to my work PC, but I was never quite enamored with it.
 
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I never used my smartphone or my personal laptop for work mails. Never had personal mail set up on my work laptop either, and never had anything but a throwaway email on my phone, just used it as a link sharing mechanism to get a link from a piece i read on my phone into a draft email i could access later from my personal laptop and so then read the piece on that laptop's browser. Was before Instapaper, Pocket etc.
 
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I do have my work email on my phone but the only time I will compose or reply to an email is when I need to notify them that I may be late, not coming in or in case of any emergencies. Majority of the emails do not warrant any or immediate response after business hours. If it is urgent, they will call. However, I do take a glance at the notification to see what I will be dealing and assess which email I should follow up with once I am in the office.
 
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ivanwi11iams said:
Sometimes, as in this instance, I feel so awkward.
Not sure why exactly, but, it has just dawned on me. From an employee perspective, there is no law or employee handbook ruling that says you must have your work email on your smartphone.

Why do we subject ourselves by having work email on our smartphones? Even more so, when certain companies do not pay a phone allowance.

My career is in IT, and well, I just presumed it came naturally to have my work email on my phone.
Over the past few months, there has been a change afoot, at work. And, well, it is causing me to pay even closer attention to things. In addition to now asking the question about work email on any personal device.

Thoughts
Click to expand...


I am one of the few people that does not have work email on my phone. I like having the option of being completely disconnected from that place.

I did have at one time though. Ditched after I almost sent an email meant for a couple of friends to people at work. that would have been a disaster.

Work laptop is for work only.

Personal cell phone/computers are for personal use only
 
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