BYOD? Be sure to CYA

[wolfie]

Do you work at a place that has a BYOD policy for smartphones (company provides apps, and uses functionality of, employee-owned device)? Be sure to keep your personal data backed up to another device (such as a home computer). It turns out that a number of companies have been protecting their data stored on employee smartphones by wiping out EVERYTHING on the device when the employee leaves.

[Raveni]

I implemented a BYOD policy for my company. The key is to communicate it well so that everyone knows what will happen.

I had to wipe an employee's lost phone today. I felt a little bad about whatever pictures were on it, but if it's lost and she never backed it up, she would have never seen the pics again anyway.

[Crossbow]

You want me to do work on my phone? You can f*^%ing pay for it. Until my monthly cell bill and phone cost are paid by the company, forget it.

My company doesn't even have my cell # and they're no going to get it either.

[Kittish]

I have to agree with Crossbow. Any company I work for that wants me to use work related apps on a phone or other mobile device will bloody well provide said device, or pay my monthly phone bill on top of any wages I earn. Otherwise, no dice!

[catcul]

My brother-in-law's workplace makes him use is own personal laptop to do coding. I don't think they can ask him to wipe the hard drive when he leaves. For some reason, they make him use his laptop, but they make his co-workers use the company owned laptop. I don't know why, either.

[EricKei]

A few years ago at another job, in another life -- before I knew better -- My boss had me purchase a laptop on eBay with company money, to be used for work purposes, in part so that he could send me to a training/conference thing which required me to have a laptop. I found out after I got back that I would be repaying the company for it...He began taking $200 out of each of my paychecks until it was paid off; he didn't warn me that he was going to be doing this, he just did it.

...Which, as I later learned, is totally illegal in the state where I was living at the time. You can't even take ANY deduction from an employee's paycheck there without a discussion and written agreement, unless it's required by the courts/government. When I confronted him about this, and some other such deductions later on, the response was always the same: "I don't want to be bothered with this. I will deduct what I want to deduct". In other words, "Shut up and go away." He implied that he could "find" other deductions to take out if I didn't comply.

If only I knew then what I know now...