Providing your employees with a work phone can seem to solve a lot of problems regarding business calls, social media marketing, and team communication. However, mobile phones can be expensive, especially ones that are built to handle certain work apps your business may need. It is therefore important that you carefully consider whether providing work phones for your employees will truly benefit your company.

Employees that may need work phones include those that travel for business, IT employees, remote workers, on-call employees, or employees who are in continual contact with clients. Another option would be to let these employees use their personal phones and reimburse them for any work or communication done through their own devices.

Providing a work mobile phone will allow ultimate compatibility with your business’ needs, as you can then decide on the phone model, operating system, carrier and hardware. This can improve productivity and allow optimum circumstances for the type of work that needs to be done.

Additionally, giving your employees a work phone can reduce distractions they would get from their personal phone. Without being able to open their personal social media accounts or see any notifications from friends and family, it becomes easier for them to distinguish between work moe and leisure mode.

Providing a work phone can also mean extra security. Your business will be able to protect important business data by installing antivirus software, regular updates, routine backups and periodic password changes without intervening with your employee’s personal life.

On the other hand, many businesses hesitate to provide work phones because it can be expensive, not only to purchase the phone but also to maintain and repair the phone. When employees use their personal devices, they are generally expected to maintain them on their own, however, a business owned phone can bring servicing fees, replacements and more work for the IT department.

Many employees may also not want to carry around multiple phones and may rather be reimbursed for using their own phone. This could also raise the issue of employees losing the phone, or forgetting to check their work phone and neglecting businesses responsibilities.