Cell Phones required for Job

Kymm

For those of you out there that have positions within the company that a cell phone for the employee is required .... How do you handle it?
I'm hearing a couple different options, but have a feeling there may be some other ideas? Right now we are looking at simply giving the employee a $ amount per month (I guess I should say a "max" amount - say it's $60.00. The employee turns in an expense sheet with a copy of the bill - we will pay up to $60.00 - the rest is the employee's responsibility. I'm not too concerned about the employee's who already have a cell phone - they will probably like the idea that we will be giving them $60.00/mo. However, what about the employee who #1 does NOT want to buy their own cell phone (for whatever reason - can't aford it, bad credit, etc.) - what do we do with them? I welcome all ideas!

HR in CA

Have you thought about the pre-paid cell phones for those who can't get their own? We don't have a requirement for cell phones, but other items that are required (other than specialized occupations which require special tools, making x amount above minimum wage) we have been told that if its a requirement of the job the company needs to provide it.

marc

We get cell phones that are local area only - a flat amount per month, roughly $32 is the cost.
The phones (specific serial number) are checked out to the EE with a form detailing cost of replacement if the phone is lost, damaged, or stolen, the amount to be deducted from paycheck - EE signature authorizes the deduction.

There is a way to have long distance charged to the phone - if it is, it comes out of their paycheck, authorized through the form.

The form also details their agreement to utilize the phone for business purposes only, yada yada yada.

We added that form because one of our EEs actually had that phone number out there for an outcall service she was running on the side. Discovered it when she terminated and her clients still called the phone number (and the new EE who now had the phone), for service.

City

We supply the cell phones to our employees. We have two Cingular phones with a bunch of minutes and each of those phone have 3 others "attached" to their plan with what's called Family Talk. The two main phones monthly cost us $149.99 each with 3000 rollover minutes/unlimited nights and weekends each to share among the eight phones and the attached phones are $9.99 each per month. Since it is free mobile-to-mobile minutes to any Cingular customer, we've found that we have thousands of minutes rolling over each month and the average cost per phone is about $50 per month including all the taxes & surcharges. We've disconnected all the text messaging and internet connections (since there is an extra charge for each time those services are used) and have a signed agreement with each employee that they will pay for the cost of replacing a lost or broken phone (we do have the insurance offered by Cingular on the phones and for a replacement phone, it costs $50 )and any directory assistance charges and any overages.

Works GREAT for us!

hhaynal

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-06-05 AT 02:53PM (CST)[/font][br][br]The company provides cell phones to just about all supervisors and above in the company. Each department is charged against their budget for the cell phone usage. In my department, the monthly cell phone is expensed from an auto pay onto a credit card. The plan our department chose is 500 minutes for each phone, local or long distance, at a monthly cost of $42.95 per phone. Anything after the 500 minutes in on a per minute charge. No one in our dept goes over the 500 minutes a month. I see the phone bills every month and realize there are a small number of personal calls made, but since no one exceeds the 500/min/month, the issue is not raised.

jrzgrl

That is how we handle any charging of the employees. As long as our pooled 20,000 minutes (almost 50 phones in the company) are not exhausted, then there are no problems. I didn't know we had international coverage until one employee decided to call Africa a few times. I had the international coverage turned off immediately and had him reimburse the company. Just gotta pay close attention to those bills.