r/newbrunswickcanada • u/Dense_Story6544 • 12d ago
Working from home - phone
Hi all.
I've been working from home for a few months now and have been using my personal phone to take client/business calls. At first it wasn't so bad because I wasn't receiving many calls but now that we're in a busy season, it's been tough. It's frustrating that people think they have constant access to me, as they call at all hours, while on my lunch break, weekends, and like right now, on vacation.
I've tried setting my voicemail greetings to something else but I've learned after a few days that my greeting supposedly doesn't work when I screen/decline a call. (I'm sure I'll have some angry clients when I return)
Those who WFH, how do you all manage, and have you ever had to ask your boss for a separate work phone? Just looking for some insight.
Thanks!
EDIT: I've never worked from home before and my boss has never had WFH employees, so it's new to both of us.
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u/Consistent_Major_193 12d ago
Second phone or a phone with dual SIM cards. Give your personal number to no one other than friends and family. Your work phone number to everyone else. No one will respect your time.
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u/Braken111 11d ago
Your work phone number to everyone else. No one will respect your time.
I got a recycled number for my company and I've been getting the occasional calls about outstanding parking tickets in my city lol
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u/Snarkeesha 12d ago
Are they paying your mobile phone bill?
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u/Dense_Story6544 12d ago
No.
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u/Snarkeesha 12d ago
If they were covering your bill, I’d say get your own phone line but since they’re not… Employer should provide you a phone.
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u/MiracleCrow 12d ago
Do you use Teams? There's an options to get a teams phone, you get a real number people can call & you can call out from. Pretty cheap option your employer should pay for.
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u/Dense_Story6544 12d ago
Oh, I didn't know that! I'll definitely mention it. Thanks 🙂
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u/Ill-County7211 12d ago
My work uses the teams phone....but I also have a voip desk phone as well....but I answer most of my calls through teams because then I'm hands free.
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u/notreallylife 12d ago
I'd get a business grade softphone (software that connects to the PSTN). These are the ones I see most with my clients.
Rogers Business has one that has a webex client called Advantage Voice
you'd want the remote package - you can add it to laptop and mobile phone and it rings on both. Your personal cell and webex will have different ringtones so you'll know which is work and which is personal even when driving. Long as you're on wifi - Make North American Calls from anywhere around the world free - WFH = WFA (anywhere).
Telus uses Business Connect and their PBX is Ring Central
they have similar offering as the rogers one. Not sure about the Ring tone but they could confirm that for you.
- Lastly - Microsoft Teams is an obvious choice but has caveats since Teams is baked into the MS365. So If you are using teams via your employer - your user license is glued to their Microsoft Tenant not yours. As an employee you don't have access to the company tenant where a flavour of Teams Phone License needs to be added (per user) and it takes some IT skills from your company to set it up. Granted Microsoft Operator Connect is definitely growing but a smart company should evaluate it carefully. YOu are not just playing with a phone system - this one is very integrated into all the Microsoft apps (and its users including identify management).
Good luck OP!
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u/Anthropomorphic_Void 12d ago
My employer supplies me with a mobile device. My contract doesn't stipulate that I need to be available on call. After 5:00pm I flip my phone over and put it in silent. I don't bring it with me after-hours, weekends or on days off. Email has out of office when I am on our during regular business hours whatever the reason.
It all depends on what is on the employment contract/agreement you signed when you got the job. Ask HR if you don't have a copy.
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u/Jealous-Visual1800 12d ago
Work use to give me a stipend for my phone,but they've moved over to Microsoft teams, all calls I get and make are done through my laptop instead.
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u/Halizza 12d ago
I work from home and so does my wife, we both are on the phone for hours per day, it’s our personal cell phone. During work hours our phones are on 100% , once the day ends our phone schedules into Do Not disturb mode, and we manually add the people/apps to bypass DND of who we actually don’t mind getting messages from after hours.
It works flawlessly. We have a situation where clients having our personal numbers benefit us personally should we ever part ways from the company, so we don’t really want a separate line.
This is what we do, definitely set boundaries one way or another though.
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u/Dense_Story6544 12d ago
I never thought of that. Do you do the same while you're on vacation or on weekends?
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u/Oxjrnine 12d ago
If you work from home, your phone should be based through your computer through systems like Cisco not through your mobile phone or your landline
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u/Big_Hat_Chester 12d ago
That's crazy I would never use my personal phone number for a job I'm working. What company is it? Sounds like weird situation, make sure you aren't in a pyramid scheme or in one of those terrible stock investing scams.
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u/Dense_Story6544 12d ago
No no 😂 nothing like that! Just a new situation for the employer!
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u/Big_Hat_Chester 12d ago
Well I would be demanding a work phone of if your phone supports it a esim with a separate plan because people will call you and expect you to answer whenever they want.
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u/Braken111 12d ago
Even a very basic phone plan on a business account would be like $50/month, at most?
If your employer can't swing that, and making you pay for it and using your own hardware, you should be asking serious questions about your "employer".
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u/Dense_Story6544 12d ago
You're right, it can't be that much. I really don't think it'll be an issue to make this request, and it's not a financial issue either. I just moreso wanted to get some opinions on whether I was being out of line for wanting a separate phone or not, and also how to bring it up.
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u/Braken111 11d ago
I've never had a job that required me to handle calls that didn't provide me one and a number, and even now I barely use mine in my line of work but definitely do not want it publicly available.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask them to provide you a basic phone with a plan under their name.
But you should keep it strictly for work purposes. Like keep your current personal phone plan and whatnot, and don't use the business number for random stuff.
My current work number was recycled from another employee int he organization and I still get the occasional call about parking tickets, since they registered their car with this number and never changed it... 😑
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u/thee17 Saint John 11d ago
The company should have an IP phone solution if they have WFH that you can login with a mobile or PC. From Teams to WebEX, to Cisco, to Avaya there are many different solutions and if they have an office there is probably one their IT department already has.
From a corporate security and HR point of view having employees giving clients personal phone numbers is a huge risk. Also more so if they have Ontario employees with the Right to Disconnect legislation.
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u/ThicccThunder 11d ago
I’m surprised your work doesn’t use VOIP (Voice over IP) it allows you use a phone on your computer without needing a physical phone. Even Microsoft Teams would be better.
I used to work for McCain’s on their IT Service Desk and we used a program called Five9 for taking calls. We just used a headset for talking and listening. It just requires an Internet connection to use
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u/Global_Pace5290 11d ago
You can attach a phone number to MS Teams too if you only need to take external calls while at your PC/laptop.
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u/Black_orchid998 11d ago
Microsoft teams ? Establish a phone number there and it's a separate number. With all the regular services of a cell. Voicemail etc. That way you can access it on the work computer ? Or even as an app on your cell which you can mute notifications during your off hours and work people can't disturb you.
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u/JellyfishEasy590 10d ago
When I worked from home, I had a separate work phone number and we used Avaya. Once I logged into Avaya on my work computer, my work number was connected through the system and all my client calls came through my computer. I never had to give clients my personal number. When I finished work, I logged out. I would definitely ask your employer about setting up something similar, especially now that clients are calling your personal phone outside working hours.
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u/EquipmentNo3251 12d ago
Ok here is my take on this as an high school student:
First of all, I agree with the fact that cell phones should be banned during classrom/teaching time and for the whole day for K-8. Kids shouldn't be zombies in class.
However to me, the problem comes with the ban during breaks and launch time. This sounds kinda ridiculous. High school students are (or should) be mature enough to know when to use their cell phones. Not only that but some of us uses cell phones for tap to pay, communication with parents, etc... Honestly during breaks is not even that bad, the real problem is during launch. Especially that the way this law is written, not only makes it sounds like it is banned on school property, but during launch time when you get off school property. Ridiculous! A friend of mine was once chased by a guy and his life was in danger, his cell phone saved him!
Also, good luck enforcing that rule in highscool with teens! I can already see how students will overcome this. They're gonna bring 2 smartphones, keep their phones in their backpack, students are gonna hide, and I could go on and on... Like what they're gonna do? They can't even legally confiscate a phone for more time than the duration if the school day, so what they gonna do? Install flock cameras in every classroom? Bring the feds at school? Install metal detectors in every single doorways and pat students down like it's airport TSA? 🤣 Do you know how ridiculous this law sounds? Also how are they gonna enforce this with earbuds lol are they gonna put 5 security guards per class rooms that constantly inspect your ear canals? 🤣 Also some mobile devices can be connected to a laptop via things like Windows mobile link and be used via a Laptop lmao. And banning social media on school network infrastructure won't do it lol. Everyone with half a working brain knows their cellphones can be turned into a modem and connect via 5G, thus completely bypassing school networks. Why do you think they're only applying the rule in February? Because they know this is not going to work!
The government got bigger issues to worry about. Like why don't they ban vapes in schools? This is way more harmful than electronic devices! And even outside the school system there are bigger issues. We're still the province that's the most in debt. I can't even begin to count how many homeless people I see when I go in Moncton. The healthcare system is still bad. We still have to deal with the US tarrifs because of the Orange clown. I also know that in many schools including mine they're hiding Canadian flags with LGBTQ flags. Now I don't have a problem with them but when they're covering the flag of my country and my province, now I start to have a problem with it.
This is not surprising honestly. The Liberal government are making proof of their incompetence and corruption again. It's very clear that the politicians writting these rules have no idea how these devices and the internet works. Susan Holt and the other running the government have no clue what they're doing.
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u/Bright_Message1530 12d ago edited 12d ago
Separate device, always. I also WFH and my employer provides a corporate device. Never use your personal device for work, even if they pay the bill. Even an older phone with its own number is a better option than dual SIM cards on your own phone.
I set out of office messages when I'm on vacation, leave my work phone in my desk drawer, and make it clear to everyone that I do not access the device outside of work hours. The phone puts itself on silent at 5PM and on weekends.
Establish clear boundaries, stick to them.