WSJ City passes on word that “Work Phones Are Being Phased Out at Banks.”
It has long been considered a standard part of a City worker’s tool kit, but the work phone could be on the way out as banks seek to encourage individuals to use their personal devices.
Banks including Citi, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan are among those making changes to how they expect employees to handle work email and out-of-office calls as they attempt to rein in costs and allow bankers flexibility on what technology they use, Financial News reports.
This has rather obvious downsides. But WSJC picks out the one I wasn’t thinking about:
While cost is a factor, banks are also taking advantage of the fact that they are now more able to make devices secure using applications such as the BlackBerry-backed Good app, which JP Morgan will use, or even relying on its own software, as is the case with Goldman Sachs – which is also keen to push the number of its staff using BYOD, one person at the bank said – with Orbit Mail.
However, Jack Gold, the president of US-based research and analysis firm J Gold Associates, said security is an issue.
If an issue arises and a company wants to wipe or get into someone’s personal phone then many would say no for privacy reasons, Gold said.
The more obvious issue, to me, is that it means employees are never off work. Given the nature of what I do, I routinely give my personal mobile phone and email addresses to students and professional contacts. But I certainly wouldn’t do that working at a bank. Wouldn’t customers naturally think they were using the business number and call it when they needed assistance? Even if it happened to be the worker’s day off?
