Dear {!firstname},

In case you're behind on your technology policy, I've added a few bullets as reminders in our Basics outline. Also, here is Part II of our HR technology policy series. We focus this month on the benefits and challenges of approaches to Cell Phone Policies.

Feel free to forward this to others who may find this newsletter helpful.

Sincerely,

Laura Pettit Rusick
OPT Solutions, Inc.
www.optsolutionsinc.com

In our articles we are covering some newer angles to your HR policy, but don't forget these standards:

• Notify the employee he or she may be monitored and has no expectation of privacy.
• State your policy prohibiting sexually explicit material.
• Require employees to protect and use secured electronic systems to communicate confidential and proprietrary information.
• Require employees to comply with your security policy, particularly as it related to passwords and systems access.

I've been through a situation where we had trouble terminating an employee because an appropriate policy was not in place. Proactive teamwork between HR, IT and Legal to create the appropriate policies for your organization can allow you to take action when an adverse situation arises.

When did you last update your HR policy's technology section? Does it include Social Networking? Cell Phone Usage? Work from Home?

In Part II of this series, we discuss cell phone policies. How can such a ubiquitous item create such interesting challenges? In many organizations, the cell phone has become as critical as a computer. Do you struggle with usage and administration?

There are two schools of thought. First, employees buy their own cell phones and receive an allowance based on their job type. The allowance may include voice usage, text usage, data usage and/or wireless card usage.

Benefits:

• It minimizes company costs (e.g. no phone costs) and increases cost predictability.
• Reimbursement standards are fairly simple to implement.
• Monitoring is not required for personal usage. Anything above the allowance is automatically the employee's responsibility.
• There is no time spent on overall contract administration.
• Even the best-rated carrier may not work in the employee's home or favorite vacation spot. By giving the employee options, he can contract with the carrier best in his particular location.

Challenges:

• It is difficult to enforce standards. The help desk ends up supporting multiple protocols for synchronizing mail, calendar and contacts which is time consuming.
• Employees must be referred back to the cell phone carrier for problems requiring carrier intervention, as the employee has the contract for the phone.
• From a security perspective, not all phones support best practices. These include:
• Remotely "wiping" - or removing - all the data on a cell phone when it is lost or stolen. If it can't, the risk of exposing sensitive information on the phone - particularly if passwords are kept and auto-filled on the phone for corporate system access - is much higher.
• Enforcing a password on the phone. If you don't, anyone can walk up to the phone and view confidential emails.
• Encrypting the data on the phone.
• Employees are incented to sign up with lower rate carriers even if that carrier gives a lower level of reception and service.

If you choose this option, define the category of phone required by job class. For example, READ MORE on Cell Phone Policies>>>

Copyright © 2010 by Laura Pettit Rusick.

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