Do You Need a Separate Work Phone and Personal Phone?
The world today is more connected than ever before. But how connected can you expect a person (or a business) to be when it comes to work communications?
Work-life balance is essential for maintaining long-term mental and physical health, and for employee retention. In fact, in a recent study, 56% of employees said they would be willing to take lower pay for better work-life balance. But that balance is tough to achieve when taking business calls on a personal phone.
That’s why so many people choose to separate their work phone and personal phone. While using one device can be simpler and saves money, carrying two devices creates a clear boundary between communications, which simplifies work in other ways.
But carrying two phones can be a hassle. It’s clear that some degree of separation between work and personal communication is essential, so how can you ensure work-life balance as a solopreneur or an employee with one personal device?
Let’s look at the problem of using a personal phone for work, the benefits and drawbacks of carrying two phones, and the solution you might not expect from AccessDirect.
The Problems of Using a Personal Phone for Work
As a solopreneur, your personal phone may be the most effective device for communication. If you’re an employee, it may be the only solution your employer allows for customer callbacks or after-hours work calls. Either way, if you’re using a personal device for work without a solution to help maintain boundaries, you’ve likely noticed the drawbacks, including:
Poor Work-Life Balance
When you’re off work or enjoying leisure time, it’s hard to know if an incoming call or text is work-related before checking your phone. Then, even if you’ve decided you’re not working at that time, you may still feel pressure to answer the call. If you’re a solopreneur struggling to get clients, it can be difficult to set work aside.
Even with a smartphone, there isn’t a practical way to screen calls temporarily without either blocking everyone (airplane mode / do not disturb) or blocking and unblocking every potential work-related number every day.
More Visibility for Your Number
If you use a personal number for business, you open up your device to unwarranted calls or scams. Remember that dissatisfied, angry customers may have your personal number, too, which can lead to harassment, abuse, and other breaches of professional boundaries. You don’t want to always have your guard up when you’re out to dinner with your family or on vacation.
What’s more, even if an employee leaves the company, many business contacts will still have their phone number. But when customers call that number, they will no longer reach your business. When the terminated employee says, “You have the wrong number,” will that customer ever call your business again? They may just give up and move on to a competitor.
Complicated Billing
When the personal and business phones are the same device, does the phone service bill count as a business expense? Do you compensate your employees for the phone bill or for wear and tear on the device for excessive use? If not, can the phone bill be written off on your taxes or your employees’ taxes? All of these questions become hard to answer when using a personal phone for work. Plus, some employers don’t compensate their employees for these costs at all, which can lead to frustrated and strained relationships.
Security/Privacy Concerns
If any employee stores customer information on their phone, and their device is compromised, all your clients’ phone numbers (and other information) may be leaked to malicious actors. This gets harder to control when an employee leaves the company.
Of course, you could create a process to ensure all company-related data is securely deleted from the device, but that would most likely require you to examine the employee’s phone, which would violate their privacy. Poorly defined boundaries like this can also create paranoia that strains your relationship with your employees.
Limitations on Devices
Using a personal device for business limits what an employee can do with that device. Contact information, voicemails, text messages, and more take up space on their limited harddrive. If the employee doesn’t have cloud storage or a device with a very large harddrive, the employee can store only limited personal data. Many people would consider this a breach of personal rights, placing unfair limits on how they use their own devices.
Lack of Professionalism
Many clients will view your use of a personal phone number for business as unprofessional. While some might not mind reaching your personal voicemail, plenty of others will be immediately put off by the informality.
It can also be very confusing for a customer to call a personal cell phone number when the business has a different advertised number (like a toll-free number).
Do You Need Separate Work and Personal Phones?
There are a number of benefits to keeping separate work and personal phones. However, there are three key reasons why it isn’t the ideal solution.
Benefits
- Work-Life Balance - Whenever you leave the office or log off from work, you can leave a work phone behind. You can even turn it off or lock it up at the office when you leave. This is a clear separation of work and personal life, which provides more autonomy, clearer boundaries, and less confusion.
- Clear Billing - With separate work and personal phones, the work phone is clearly the company’s responsibility, and can be categorized as a business expense for a solopreneur or business owner. This way, you can spend less time figuring out financial problems — just set up your billing process for each phone, and forget about it.
- Professional Image - A separate work phone can convey more professionalism. You can be sure that customers are only calling your work number and only reach your professional voicemail for your business. It also allows you to use a toll-free number and potentially set up a phone menu with a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) system.
- Less Maintenance/Privacy Concerns - Your business owns the separate work device in every sense of the word (assuming your company pays the bill). You can dictate what the employee can and can’t do with the phone, install specific apps, and control how information is stored on the device. When an employee leaves, they can return the phone to your business to be wiped and/or transferred to a new employee. All this can be done without violating anyone’s privacy or limiting the use of their personal device.
Why It’s Not Ideal
- It’s Clunky - Carrying around two phones is burdensome and inefficient. While it does create a clear boundary, they take up pocket space and can be easily misplaced. With two devices to keep track of, it’s more likely one will get lost or left behind — and that’s a high-ticket item to replace if lost (not to mention a privacy issue).
- It Costs Too Much Money - Buying a new phone for every new employee and paying every phone bill is a big expense. Even for just one person, you’re looking at hundreds or thousands of dollars. For most new budget-model iPhones, you will pay $500 to $600. Premium models may be nearly double that. While Android tends to offer cheaper options, a new Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel will still cost several hundred dollars. Plus, with any phone you choose, the service costs remain in addition to the hardware.
- It Simply Isn’t Necessary - We have a better idea. Rather than carrying around separate work and personal phones to maintain professional boundaries, you can achieve better work-life balance, and give all business callers a great first impression with a BYOD solution from AccessDirect. With our virtual PBX setup, you can achieve all the same benefits of having two phones for a fraction of the cost — without getting a new device.
The Solution: A BYOD Work Phone Setup
At AccessDirect, we offer the best of both worlds for employers and employees: a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) phone service solution. With BYOD, you use your personal device as the hardware for a virtual phone system, and can effectively take calls on two different numbers with the same device — for a much lower cost than a second phone.
With a BYOD setup from AccessDirect, you solve all the problems of using one personal phone for work and business.
Two Phone Numbers on One Device
With AccessDirect, you can receive calls to a virtual business number on your personal device. This virtual number can be a regular toll-free number, a vanity number, a local number, or any other number you choose. You (or your employees) can simply offer this as the callback number for after hours or other types of service. That way, the customer can call back later without using someone’s personal number.
As a solopreneur, you can see which calls are from work and which are personal. Caller-ID and multiple extensions within the virtual phone system make it easy to segment calls by business need. For instance, you might set up one extension for sales and a separate extension for technical support. Whichever extension the caller selects can be displayed on the screen at the time of the call, allowing you to choose whether or not you answer based on urgency. You can even set up automated messages for certain extensions (like for general business hours or other common questions).
All of these features also help project a big business image, even if it’s only you (or a small team) running the company.
Call Scheduling for Work-Life Balance
A virtual phone system allows for more granular control over how you receive calls. When you leave work or log off, you can automatically forward business calls to voicemail or to another extension, even automatically. This allows you to choose when you take work calls, and when you don’t.
No more deciding whether or not to answer an important work call. You won’t be reminded of work on vacation (at least not by your cell phone ringing). You won’t be interrupted by a sales call at dinner. You can gain complete control over your schedule while keeping your personal device available.
Auto-Attendant Call Routing
If you have multiple team members, you can also set up your BYOD system to forward calls to their different numbers. When callers reach your primary number, they hear a pre-recorded greeting with a phone menu (i.e. “Press one for sales, press two for customer service,” etc.). This is especially helpful if you have an after-hours technical support team or a remote workforce.
For instance, you might decide to route calls through a sequence of extensions during normal working hours, to be answered by the first available person. Then, when that team goes home, you can automatically route calls to the other team with the same functionality — all on their personal cell phones (via a business number).
For a remote team, you can allow anyone in any location to answer the call on their personal device according to rules you set. Simply decide your schedule and call sequence, and let it ring.
Cost-Savings
A BYOD setup is all you need to maintain work-life balance, for only one monthly fee. Plus, virtual service for a group of extensions is typically cheaper than cell service, and won’t require a new physical device. The extra hardware cost for a separate work phone is eliminated.
With this setup, billing is also simplified. Your employee can continue paying for their personal device while your company pays for the BYOD phone service through AccessDirect.
One App for All Features
With AccessDirect, you don’t need to violate your employee’s privacy or be concerned about leaked customer information via a cell phone. We provide all features, customizations, and functionality in a single app (with configurable permissions). When an employee is terminated, all they need to do is delete the app and all sensitive customer information will be removed from their device. Even if the employee forgets this step, you can revoke their account remotely, achieving the same goals. There’s no need to store company information, client phone numbers, or anything else on the device itself — it’s all virtual.
Plus, with the app, you get a suite of powerful call-management features, including:
- Find-Me/Follow-Me Call Routing
- Virtual Call Management
- Professionally Recorded Greetings
- Voicemail Transcription
- Individual Or Department Extensions
- Music on Transfer
- Dial-By-Name Directory
- Fax to Email
How To Set Up a Virtual Phone System With AccessDirect
- Choose a device as the hardware.
- Choose one of AccessDirect’s flexible plans for virtual phone service.
- Start using a virtual business number that remains separate from the personal number and data.
How To Ask Your Employer About Implementing a BYOD System
If you believe that a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) system could enhance your work-life balance and streamline communication at your workplace, you’re not alone. Many employees and solopreneurs need a solution that provides the best of both worlds.
However, as an employee without buying authority, how can you suggest changes to company policy or operations (like implementing a new phone system)?
Start by gathering key points about how a BYOD system (like the one from AccessDirect) can specifically benefit your company — including cost savings, efficiency, improved data security, and other benefits. When you’re ready to discuss these with your employer, lay out your suggestions in a well-structured email. Below is a template you can use to effectively communicate your proposal in a way that is professional, yet friendly:
Subject: Proposal for Enhancing Communication Efficiency With BYOD System
Dear [Employer’s Name],
I hope this message finds you well. I have been exploring potential solutions that could enhance our team’s productivity and work-life balance, and I came across a system that I believe aligns perfectly with our company’s goals: AccessDirect.
AccessDirect provides a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) virtual phone system, which could offer us significant benefits, including:
- Increased autonomy and engagement for employees
- Reduced costs on hardware
- An enhanced professional image
Our current phone system requires employees to use personal devices for business phone calls, which comes with significant limitations. A BYOD system would provide employees with dedicated business numbers and voicemail systems on the same devices, without compromising our personal phone numbers. This system would also allow us to manage work calls more effectively, ensuring that personal time outside of work hours remains undisturbed.
AccessDirect’s service also comes with features such as call routing, professionally recorded greetings, and voicemail transcription. I believe a system like this could improve our customer interactions, operational efficiency, and engagement in several ways.
I would like to discuss this further and explore how we might test this system. It looks like they offer a free trial, which would allow us to gauge its impact on our communication and management workflows with no risk. Could we schedule a time to discuss this in more detail?
Thank you for considering this. I look forward to your thoughts.
Best regards,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
Final Thoughts
Maintaining work-life balance is important in any business, but you can achieve it without carrying around two phones. Whether you’re a solopreneur or an employee, AccessDirect enables you to use your personal phone to take business calls without giving away your personal number.
But our solutions go beyond helpful technology. We also provide a full-service setup with dedicated customer service for all of your phone system needs.
At AccessDirect, we understand that every company is different. You may have a unique setup with complex requirements for your phone menu. You may only need certain features or a limited number of minutes per month. We get it! That’s why we offer flexible packages that provide you with all the features you need at a price you can afford.
Call us today to learn more about our flexible packages for small businesses. Or, start a free trial to discover how easy it is to achieve work-life balance today.