Australia has recently legislated Right-to-disconnect laws. An employee may now legally refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from their employer outside of their working hours. America needs this.

It is annoying how companies want 24/7 access, but don't want to pay for it. Our off hours should be free from work expectations. Period. Unless you own the biz and it's your baby, off hours are not to be infringed upon.

"I will send an email to have a permanent reminder of this, but when I am off the clock and not on call, I am a contractor. My rates are $130/hour, minimum billing period is 4 hours. Should I be called when I am neither on the clock nor on call, I will be sending you the bill for my time"

My agency has work cell phones and they tell the employees to turn it off when they are not at work. Sometimes workers keep it on so their clients can call them and then they complain how needy their clients are. They were told to turn it off lol. Their fault.

"Not for personal use" and "we will have access to everything on this device" is not unexpected and a decent heads up. But the minute they said that any cost would come my way I'd have reacted the exact same way (if I hadn't done so when they asked for 24/7 hour access to me with no increased compensation).

I was given the option for a phone, but it was being heavily encouraged. I declined because I knew what that meant and I like having a personal life 😂

Absolutely not , 40 hours per week, after that turn the phone off

At my company, we were encouraged to provide company access to our personal phones if we didn't want a company phone and were using our personal mobile devices for work. I respectfully declined! One of the conditions was that if the phone was stolen or lost, they would wipe the phone 100%....uh, no thanks.

A work phone is super useful for technicians. Being able to take pictures of issues or broken parts and watsapp them to the supplier is super useful. Having a phone number to give customers when you're in the field that belongs to the company is also good. I have a company for for this. But I don't take it home with me, it stays at work. But wow is the camera and watsapp useful for making the job faster

I did a couple days training for a job before submitting my resignation. Other than my dislike for the trainer who talked down to me as though I was a third-grader, they expected me to download two work related apps to my personal phone without covering any of the charges for my phone plan.

My work phone stays in my desk when I leave for the day. Occasionally, I'll bring it home with me if I know that there is something going on during second shift or over the weekend that I may need to answer questions (I work in manufacturing).

No overtime pay by the hour for every interruption of my time off. Or the phone will be powered off between the hours of 5pm to 9am and 24 hours a day on my days off. Also, I will not be using it if you are not paying 100% of the bills while used for work. Return to sender is the only option in this case. Hell, don't give them the ability to call on your cell unless they are willing to pay for the privilege.

I have a workphone. It's on 24/7 unless I'm on vacation. I've told customers they may call and whatsapp any time of the day and even during weekends. But I also tell them very clearly that I will not answer and reply outside working hours, that the phone is on silent in my workclothes. But that way they may contact me and I will get back to them first thing in the morning once I'm back on the clock.

We got work mobiles my boss demanded that our phones are turned off at 1700 and not turn back on till 0900. Anyone who does use work mobile outside of working hours will be told off. Such a massive difference between work culture in Europe and the USA evert time.

The phone never left the desk drawer!😂😂

My phone is only on during working hours! And while I'm at home, I don't even turn it on TBH. Lol

They tried that at my office (IT). We never took the phone home until they changed the policy. I wasn't going to carry two phones.

We have work phones for our staff that need them. All costs are covered (unless its really excessive) and they are expected to return it when they leave. They are NOT expected to be on it outside of working hours. We recently got right to disconnect here in Australia, so you can't force people to answer after hours.

My last employer paid for phones for a while, for our dept specifically because we were on call....That didn't last more than a year before they took it away and told us to just use our own. That also didn't go over well because we weren't answering after hours pages, so It went to each manager to decide. If we got paged we could charge 2-4 hours time per page to respond, but still using our own device.

I am learning to set boundaries without feeling guilty about it. Hard journey though....

I worked for a start up many moons ago. Was informed they needed to install software on my phone to monitor all content data and apps and have full control the phone, including remote wipe. I refused, politely pointing out that the device was my private property with my private data on it. After some nasty threats, including sacking, they backed down and supplied a company iPhone.

My work recently gave the employees phones to use while at work. It is so they can send us jobs to do while we are doing our work. Thankfully we puck them up when we clock in and turn them back in at the end if shift. They were trying to use our personal phones for this but many of us refused to answer or even blocked the work numbers. They weren't paying for our phone bill, so they don't get to use our personal phones for work!

My first (and last) company phone in a 9-6pm role was given to me with the following expectation: "It should always be turned on, and if we call you at 2am you have to get up and open your laptop to complete the requested task." I wasn't there for much longer:)

i have learned my lesson.. if im signing a contract with a company going forward, imma read that fudger for like a week before i sign it..

Our company realized that 24 hour access was becoming a problem and set up strict rules about after-hour communications. We were a truly global company, and these changes improved our work/life balance. About 15 years ago.

In the US, there was a ruling a while back that said "being made available" is the same as "on-call". And on-call has to be paid. Some companies think that since the employee is salaried, it doesn't matter. Federal law says salaried employees must still make minimum wage for the hours they put in. If you're on-call 24/7, then that's 168 strait hours a week. If you use CA min wage and OT law, the company would have to pay you at $229k a year for that.

Thanks for these videos, i was having similar issues with my last two jobs, as both were starting to creeo into my personal life. Really helpful how you keep your boundaries in a strong respectful manner

They have their place when done right. Same goes for a company vehicle. Last year, that "on-call" pay differential alone bought three ATVs, a bass boat, and all-new kitchen appliances.

The boss pays for all our mobiles. Private use is allowed. No limits. Outside office hours we are not expected to answer.

The last couple of times I've had a work supplied phone it was strictly for security purposes and not for purposes of reaching me during off-hours-thank gawd!!! If I'd had a manager who'd tried to tether me that way, I'd have put the phone on silence or not even powered it on. I once had a supervisor who couldn't prioritize and would call me at all hours of the day and night with non-emergencies. I learned how to program my phone to not ring unless a specific (very small) set of people called during specified hours of the day.

There's a lovely little "do not disturb" switch on the top left on my IPhone. It's amazing how at 5 pm my work phone just goes silent.

I love that there is a "C" on the handle on her cup. Also I hate mobile phones. Was on 24 hour call for most of my working career. It was only the last 10 years that the new company I then worked for, paid us $100.00/week bonus for being on call, if required to actually return to work, we were paid $120.00/hr for 4 hours regardless if we worked less. Then double time when returning to our actual shift if we didn't have a 10 hour break. we worked 12 hour shifts, 4 days on, 4 days off. On our days off, we were only contacted if more man power was required. Loved those last 10 years of my career. (I'm Australian, living in Oz.)

I don't have an issue with work-issued mobiles (provided the company is paying for them), but I do have an issue with them expecting close to 24/7 availability without paying the worker for that level of availability. My boss has only contacted me outside of work and expected a response twice - once to let me know the AC was out in the building and not to come in, and once because my time didn't release right and I needed to fix it to get paid on time. I consider both of those acceptable reasons to contact me outside of work hours.

I have a company mobile phone. A very very good one. I pay nothing, I can use it for all my personal needs, and nobody is expecting me to answer any call after my busiens hours. A really do like my employer and since they are very fair towards myself, I am an absolutely loyal employee.

Yeah. I have a colleague whos manager got very upset when they found out the colleague just left their workphone in their locker when they went home for the evening (This was before covid, so remote work was not a thing). I've been more lucky with my managers so far (knock on wood).

As a contracted employee who’s contact stated my hours of employment, I used to get work calls when I was not at work or being paid to be on call, so I started adding an hours overtime to my timesheet for each time I received a call or calls if within the hour, they soon stopped calling me out of hours.

Gotta love the electronic leash

Positive! My company phone allows me to take meetings in the car, while running errands, while on a walk, etc. Of course these are meetings that do not require constant input from me. I love that it gives me flexibility, not having to be continuously attached to my laptop. Despite me supporting teams in multiple time zones my employer understands that we cannot be available 24/7, no pressure to be available in personal time.

On the flip side, as a home healthcare nurse, we will shortly be losing our company phones (along with all the shortcuts and templates I had saved over the years). We are expected to call our clients the day before, along with numerous calls to providers, each other, etc. Now we will be expected to use our personal phones for this. So no more shutting the device off at the end of the work day. I'm seeing a loss of work/home boundaries here, and most likely will retire very soon.

Nice one, toodaloo!!

In Australia it’s illegal now. My work mobile goes off at 5 and on at 8:30. Weekends it’s left in the drawer at work😅

I’m very happy to have a separate work phone. It means my personal phone details are not available to clients and it is far easier to keep work restricted to the times I choose.

There was a similar conversation in my teams meeting earlier this week. We don’t have work cell phones, but we did poll to see who had their work email on their phone and who had our phone app on theirs. Weirdly, I was one of the few who didn’t have their work email, and I think the only one with the phone app. I’m willing to take the occasional calls outside of work from clients or coworkers, but otherwise, no.

I am so glad this isn’t a thing where I work. I have a work mobile. But it is only on when I’m working, the rest of the time it is off. It’s useful for travel, and for getting hold of customers cause I can send a text if I’m having no luck with calls. But my employer doesn’t expect me to be picking up the phone outside of working hours

I've got a work phone and I love having it for responding to teams messages and being in meetings when I'm away from my computer. It also has my company's 2FA app so it's not on my personal phone anymore, but my company's culture is very positive towards work-life balance. After working hours, on the weekend, or when you're OOO there's no expectation to be available. If my company wasn't like that then I'd be 100% anti work phone.

Weirdly enough, they gave us company mobiles at one of my previous positions. From the get go I started leaving it on my desk when I went home. Management and colleagues were baffled to say the least.

In my previous employer 21 years ago they took our company phones off us in Engineering team and issued us with pagers. I said “So you expect me to respond to pager message with my personal phone?” , “Yes but you claim that call back on expenses”, “So I need to go through my bill and claim the 50 UK pence back for that month?”. Current employer is great to work for and very relaxed on mobile usage for personal use and probably explains the past 21+ years

What over charges would there be if I can't use it for personal use?

One organisation I work for at one stage contributed towards my cell phone costs as part of the job I was doing for them but they checked before giving my cell number to anyone, especially after I had some 'interesting' conversations. Now, I might look at giving out a work cell number, but I will not give out someone's personal number without permission, but sadly, there are folks who think that's ok. Once I have a conversation with them, that tends to stop.

I had two phones for many years/jobs, one lived in a drawer for 16 hrs of the day and in one case, it lived in my work desk drawer. That's how it is. If there are respectful people who understand the importance of boundaries and only truly call when it's a real emergency, they get my personal number.

One of my former employers insisted on issuing absolutely everyone in the company a company cell phone that was company paid. One of the hilarious things was that the first carrier they selected had a major hole in their coverage area that was where our main office was. Funny thing was that the coverage hole was blatantly obvious from the carrier’s coverage map on their website…

I liked the way my previous employer handled this. If you wanted a company phone you could request one, but in general you’d only get one in temporary basis for a work trip.

If I’m in the middle of a MAJOR project or a shit storm, I’ll turn on notifications on my phone. But as soon as the emergency has passed, it’s turned right back off. I’m willing to do this simply because of the infrequency with which these situations arise.

When I was a commercial photographer in the 1990s, one of my clients said they wanted to give me a pager (this was the 90s after all) so they could contact me when they needed work done. They were tired of getting my voicemail when they called. I told them my standard rate would be in effect 24-hours a day for me to carry such a device. They decided not to proceed.

I have a work phone, the first sentence of the guidelins: No call is that important that it can't wait until next morning 😊

I think they can be a great tool for positions that need 24/7 availability (I have some friends who sometimes have on call duty, meaning they don’t need to be in the office but have to be available in case of urgent issues) or for tasks which need or benefit from a mobile device, like work on social media, on the road, or when lots of calls are involved.

The beauty is that the work phone can be put into a lead lined box after hours. Before GPS got better, truck drivers would put a bucket over the receiver on the tops of their trucks to go dark.

This happened at my old job and I just said "OK" waiting for them to demand *explicitly* that 1) the device had to be on after work hours, or 2) I had to keep it with me after work hours, or 3) I had to answer it after work hours. They didn't - they said they "expected" those things. Afterwards I put the phone in a desk drawer and never touched it again in the three more years I worked there. Once or twice someone said I hadn't answered my phone and maybe I said, "I was in the middle of something" or maybe I just said nothing. But when they called my desk phone, I always either answered or got back to them quickly. When I had to work late, I came into the office and worked. In reality, people will only "expect" what you give them or what you _explicitly refuse_ to give them. Do things in the way that suits you and the rest of the world will adjust. Confrontations and refusals almost never produce the results you want, and when they do the cost is often high.

For the monthly price of a mobile which they still own, they get 24/7 employee work for no additional salary expenses to the company. Crafty little….

Maybe my work is weird, but there is an expectation of work-life balance. I have a DnD on the device after 5:30 pm until 8am, and all day on weekends. They pay for everything, including overseas charges when I have to travel for work in Canada. :) I like having it so I don't have to log into the laptop to see my meetings on Monday when setting my alarm Sunday night.

I like your shorts you are right I have same type problems on job thanks.im only there to work and then get the hell away from there 🤗

My manager at the hospital I work had a meeting with us to make sure that we are not responding to emails or texts , especially from him , outside of working hours . He even started making sure to put in the email when he sends something at the end of the day on Friday " No need to respond to this today. Respond on Monday when you return to work " as we would often see his message late Friday since we have access on our phones to work email/teams/texts/etc , and would respond to get him the information he was requesting as soon as possible . We are in salaried positions so technically he could have expected us to handle immediately, but he knows how responsive we are and wanted to make sure we weren't taking time away from our off time .

I have a company cell phone specifically so they can access me 24/7. But... I get compensated very well for that with a higher salary AND they pay me for the extra time on top of my higher salary. Not all employers are bad.

I don't mind people calling or texting outside work hours ... but I will ALWAYS reserve the right to answer, read or reply to them, unless I'm paid to do so! Toodaloo 🙂

For rank and file folk like me, it is not expected that we keep the work-issued phone on at all times. It's a different story for the folks in the management levels, though. This is one of the reasons I'm not interested in becoming a manager.

One of my jobs tried this. We all left the phones on our desk when we left at 5pm. We told them since we weren't being paid to be on call the phones would not be on our person outside of business hours.

I do like my company phone, and we do have an on-call rotation. But if I am not on-call, I do not carry my phone after my work day is complete. And my boss fully agrees.

I barely keep my personal phone on me. I got crap from a coworker once for not carrying my personal cell when I went out of the building for lunch. I wasn’t on call, didn’t have to cut lunch short, didnt need to hurry back. I didn’t take longer lunches than allotted. She said “may I ask why you don’t carry your phone?” I said “because I dont want to.” She was 23, I was 50. My life doesnt revolve around a phone. She said she’d prefer it if Id carry it, and I said nope. 😂 She wasnt my supervisor-I was a military contractor and she was enlisted. Apples and oranges

i am retiring in a few weeks after having jobs for the past 25 years that required 24/7 support for no extra money. these jobs, while paying well, ate away at me gradually and killed my piece of mind. started with pagers and ended up with smartphones. yes all the companies paid lip service to "work/life balance" but that was all BS. i get my life back on april 5th.

My work mobile was secure, and run by an outside firm. We had rules in place about how they were to be used, including no requirement to respond "outside hours". The only people that could respond were those rostered on-call for emergencies. In 7 years I had no problems with the matter. (United Kingdom Railway employee)

I’m glad that I have a reasonable laptop and cell phone policy. There’s no expectation to answer the phone or power up the laptop during off hours. They also strongly discourage adding personal accounts, such as Facebook, to work devices. I feel like this is a good policy because I can simply put away my work devices instead of filtering out work from my own devices when I’m off.

I retired before my old employer pulled this. From the grapevine, Corporate also required that the inspector do all of his/her/its reports on the provided iPhone. Apple IOS blows chunks IMHO, and were I still there, the Company Leash would have fallen off some how in the first week... Glad I am not under their falanges anymore!

I would love to know what Donna Sue said about that :)

So, different view on this. Viewing as opposed to, say, adding work apps (email and teams, but also authenticators and similar mobile device requirements) to your personal phone, and this is a major benefit. It lets you isolate work activity to the work phone, and, for instance, leave it on your desk at 5pm. The expectation of constant availability is a secondary requirement that needs to be negotiated at the contract level.

I was salaried and issued a work cellphone. Unless it was a weekend when I was on-call for maintenance emergencies the phone was turned off outside of my work hours. If I got called in to work during my on-call weekend I was given comp time to make up for it. If an emergency arose outside of work hours or my on-call weekend my boss called me on my personal phone and nobody else had that number. He never abused that trust.

UK peep here so maybe not the audience you were asking buuuuuut... I have a work phone from when I used to be on call, though I'm not anymore. It stays on and sometimes doesn't ring for so long that I forget I have it and it goes flat. But back when I was actually on call I got paid for being on call so I didn't mind, I would also get paid OT for answering as well. It does have the same tracking and monitoring you mentioned, but given that I only use it to answer and make work calls it isn't an issue for me.

Back when beepers were all the rage, a company I worked for issued critical employees beepers. I was salary, but two employees were hourly. Seems the state we worked in required employers to compensate the hourly employees an additional amount for carrying beepers. The companies solution? One employee was quickly made salary (never understood why they were hourly to begin with) the other employee remained hourly but was switched to rarely being on call necessitating the need for them to carry a beeper. The newly salaried person had to carry the beeper more frequently. They were not happy.

My work phone NEVER left my office. You call after I'm off, you get voicemail 😌 My boss cosigned that as well!

I have one for my job. But I work on the road at different locations. I use it to clock in and call my supervisor when needed. I also use it to take direction from the people I work with and work for while on the clock. The second I clock out that Phone gets silenced.

Worked remotely for 10 or more years with a company phone, it was useful for keeping in touch etc... but when they fitted trackers to the van and not the phone, it was obvious which piece of equipment was more valuable, so I left it in the van and rarely answered it... (we could be 30 or more minutes away from the vehicles, in the middle of nowhere 🤔)

Work Issued mobiles are not a gift, they are a Ball and Chain. DO NOT DO ANYTHING PERSONAL ON THEM AND TURN OFF GPS, same for issued laptops. So YES, you will be carrying 2 phones, that way your personal info stays personal. For Vacations: explain that you're going somewhere without reliable cell phone coverage and that you'll be difficult or impossible to reach most of the time. (And then leave your phone at your desk, so if they call, it rings in the office and the person that is supposed to be covering for you can answer it, LOL).

For years I have had 2 phones, business and personal. This should be obvious to everyone but the number of people who only have the one phone is far higher than it should be. During the week carry both and out of hours vet which calls you deem important to take, otherwise voice mail does its job really well. I carry both when having the odd day off but vet calls, messages and emails depending on urgency, but again OOO does the job pretty well. First rule is never take the business mobile on vacation, I used to, but good advance planning and OOO do the job. Second rule, never schedule meetings on your first day back. As you climb the ladder and renumeration goes up, so the hours of work blur as the demand is work the hours needed to get the job done. For most however, you’re not being paid enough to take your boss and colleagues on vacation with you! Third rule be careful about who you give your personal number to! Final thought; as the saying goes the graveyard is full of indispensable people, but life goes on!

Once drove for a guy who gave me one. Hated it. At the last 2 companies I drove for I got tired of customers wanting my personal phone number. Had one clerk that was so adamant about getting a phone number I gave her my home number. She didn't appreciate what my wife said when she woke her up.😅 Some would ask me how did I get in touch with my company without a phone and I'd tell them Qualcomm. I also didn't have a CB radio in the truck either. Stopped using it in 1996.

If I had one it would be turned off as soon as I leave the office. And turned as I'm walking up to the building. If I only work in an office with field visits or travel of any kind, that phone is staying in my desk drawer.

I have a corporate phone, I use a Google voice number so I only carry one device. This means that I haven't had a mobile phone bill in 7 years. All Social media is blocked, but Gmail etc is not, that has made me much happier day to day. The job was an on-call position from the start. It is my only company phone, they removed the desk phones about 2 years ago. The week that we are on-call you answer it, the rest only if it's from the direct teammates

Good for you on noping out of that deal. If a company wants me, they know how to get me. Once I’m done with the day, so should they be done with their day.

I have one, but I am one of the lucky few who gets to leave it in my desk during off hours. They are so chill. My last employer was so bad she ruined my coworkers vacation to the Oregon coast. She and 2 others resigned afterwards. I was one of the other 2.

I put up with that in the Army and it was insufferable enough there. As a civilian that would be a hard no.

My work issued me a cell when I started. It's been in a cupboard ever since.

I've used two phones for that last 20 years, at least. The work one either provided or not automatically goes into Do Not Disturb mode at 5:30PM and exits at 9AM. Work emails and calls can wait. And I don't take the phone on holiday either. I do not share my personal mobile number with my employer.

Been issued one for years, I always make sure it has an “off” button and I use it regularly

My ex wife had a great way of dealing with this when it happened to her. She recorded her boss telling her that she would be compensatedid for any calls after hours. At a certain rate. She let it go on for the 1st month.And then when the pay was short went to h.R with the recording. That was a nice check for almost six times her average salary per month.

"This conversation is being recorded. If you expect me to be available via this mobile phone 24/7, then I will require being PAID 24/7, and yes overtime and holiday rates WILL apply, as will any governmental regulations restricting expected demands of work during mandatory rest periods--I believe the labor laws state that there must be a certain number of hours of *uninterrupted* rest every so many round-the-clock working hours. If I am not going to be compensated appropriately as according to the law, then it will only be used during my contracted normal-rate working hours. It will remain shut off at all other times, and ANY expenses incured BECAUSE of using it for work within working hours WILL be paid for by the company, not by me. If you accept these amendments and submit a suitable contract in writing, then I will accept having a work-supplied, work-funded, and for-work-only mobile phone. "If you do not accept these conditions and insist that I HAVE to take the phone and use it during non-working hours, then I will be filing a protest with the Department of Labor for trying to force me to work unpaid overtime, and I will be noting all reactions after doing so in the understanding that any harassments or retaliations will also be reported. If you do not accept these conditions, but do not protest my right to refuse to work unpaid labor, then you can take back your offer, and nothing more need be said. "However, regardless of which outcome is achieved, I will still be keeping an eye on things in the coming days to make sure there are no harassments nor retaliations that arise from me acting within my rights to protects my rights." (My state is a two-party consent state, hence the statement at the start.)

Straight to voicemail.

"return to sender", loved it

It all depends. I had one. My firm only rang me in real emergency. Nighttime as in after 9pm it got turned off . Holidays i did take it but it was mostly off.

My company mobile phone was like me. When beeing off duty it was also off. Oh, and it was used by me only for the two dactor autenthification. I write "was" because they told me it was to expensive to provide me a mobile phone for only laying on the desk.... Game, set and match!!

I have a work phone and it is helpful when working from home so I don’t have to use my personal number for work related things. However I am usually not available outside of my working hours and it is also not expected of me. I will call back once I am back working. And I turn off my phone when on holiday.

My company does this. As we’re in construction management the belief is that if something was to go wrong on the project site anyone working on the project should be on call. However, the safety policy for emergencies doesn’t follow this call everyone scheme but we have no choice because we need the company cell since our site offices don’t have phones. It got a lot of people angry when the policy came out. On the flip side they don’t monitor the phone too much (ie don’t watch porn on it but KZfaq and other socials are okay), and I take it with me while on vacation because the company will pay for the coverage since I need to “be on call” even though no one will actually call me. 🤨🤷‍♀️

Its basically a requirement in my industry. The only time I carry it when I'm not working is when Im on my scheduled on call rotation. The only time I use it after work is to text coworkers on when we are showing up the next day. Other than that I dont answer it if it rings or otherwise goes off