Cell phone Abuse

Eliant

Our company provides a number of employees with cell phones to facilitate the day to day company business. However, we have been advised by our corporate office two of these employees have consistent a high total consumption of minutes (in accordance with their responsibility)resulting in cell phones bills in excess of $300.00 average. Many of these calls were done during work time. We have other employees performing the same job and their phone bills are an aerage of $40.00 per month. We also have employees that travel for business, sales etc and their phone bills have been in line with their line of work averaging $100.00 to 200.00 when they travel out of state. Our Director of Operations is extremely upset and feels that these employees have abused their priveledges. He feels he can't trust them and he wants to terminate these employees. Can anyone outhere share some thoughts or concerns with that decission?
Thanks for your input in advance.

System

My first question would be whether you have a policy on company cell phone use that addresses excessive or personal use. If the employees are otherwise dependable and productive, I wouldn't terminate based solely on this. I would review the policy with them and remind them of the consequences (whatever you all have in force) if the abuse/use continues.

Eliant

We have general policy that addreses "Unauthorized use of telephones, mail systems, or other employer owned equipment". They are aware of the fact that while the company understands an occasional need to use the phone for personal use, the primary use of this equipment is for business. As I said the average dollar amount of the phone bill is betweem $100 to $200. The itemized bill only shows incoming calls, most from private numbers, lots of call to the voice mail and an array of calls out of state.

Whatever

Our cell phone bills are itemized. Therefore, it is easy to determine if the calls are for business or not.

sonny

Ours are as well, and they are monitored. We had a problem a while back with some ee going over the allotted minutes. It was decided to go the next higher plan (more minutes) Employees with phones now pay $10.00 a month and may use for reasonable personal use. There continues to be one abuser and he is dealt with indiviudally.

Theresa Gegen TX

If excessive cell phone use is the only issue with these employees (performance is otherwise fine), considering giving them a written warning before firing. Be specific as to what they did, and say if no immediate change is seen, they will be terminated. Then monitor the bills to see if they change their behavior.

Good Luck!

LeeR

I would find out first if the higher bills are due to personal calls or are these two employees spending more time per cutomer call than other employees. If it is personal calls and thats the only issue I would call these two in and tell them to either keep the personal calls to a minimum or pay for there own calls.

Trinity

I agree with the former posters. As you are not aware of whether these "private" numbers are personal or business related, I would call in the employees and have them go over the bill with you to explain the calls. Many people do not realize how much they talk on the phone until the bill comes in. (Insert personal experience!;;)) If the majority of calls are seen to be personal, then I would give them a written warning.

Another option to consider is that if they are out on business alot, there may be reasons for having personal calls more than normal (unless of course they are doing this every month) a month. You might want to consider giving the employees the option of splitting the cost with you for personal calls they make over a certain limit. This way you keep down costs, and they are able to make the personal calls. Just curious -Has their job performance suffered as well?

Parabeagle

I don't think I would terminate for excessive cell phone use, if all other aspects of the employment relationship are satisfactory. I agree with Teresa and suggest a written warning first. Our cell phone policy includes a provision that company-issued cell phones are only to be used when a landline is not available. So far we haven't encountered any significant abuses and we've been using company-issued cell phones for about 3 or 4 years now. If you would like a copy of our policies and restrictions, email me and I'd be happy to send it to you. Good luck.