i started working for a new company today. I asked the basic questions at interview but now i realize i might have made a mistake. The owner wants us to down load app on phones for jobsite time clock to keep track of our time. We are 3 new guys and not one was provided a phone to company business. order materials , make phone calls to superviser. I wish now i would have taken a little more time looking for new employment. I was just wondering is this the new electrical trade, no insurance, no phone, no company vehicle ? The owner makes all the profit. i guess time to start looking again.
personal phone company business
- Thread starter mannyb
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Engineer
Don't know about your state, but here in California if an employer requires that you have a phone and/or drive a vehicle as part of your job, they either have to provide you with it or pay you for the use of your personal equipment. You might want to check out your state's business laws.
My wife's employer kept saying no, not true, but someone turned her in and she got busted last year. Now she has to pay everyone back for years worth of her abuse. It's kind of a pain in the rear for my wife (really me) though, because she needs to show records of mileage and phone use. I'm only going to go back 1 year, it's not worth it to dig through old records like that for a few hundred dollars. But the nice thing is, my wife gets it from here on out.
i actually read something similar about a class action law suit California before i hired on. Who knew!
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Engineer
Yeah, lots of secrets. Another thing I hadn't known about for a long time here is that the practice of "use it or lose it" PTO (personal time off) is also illegal here. I've had several employers pull that one on me over the years and when I call them on it, they always claim ignorance. I don't think so, I think they do it and hope that most people don't know.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
Now let's complicate it - suppose you had itemized those non reimbursed expenses as deductions on income taxes in the past?
- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Can we stay with the OP question?
Please, feel free to start a new thread if you would like a tangentially related discussion.
we had 2 guys couple years ago SUE the last company I worked for, for those same thing you mentioned, one was settled for undisclosed amount the other is still in litigation. I heard the last guy suing for 1million dollars, no joke! Salaried employees are entitled to over time is the lawsuit.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I think what I said was still on topic. If you are not reimbursed for expenses incurred by your employment you certainly can deduct those expenses from your income taxes. When it comes to a state or local law requiring reimbursement - is it the right thing to do if the employee took the deduction on their taxes?
Advice to OP, if not required to be reimbursed by local/state laws, keep track of your non reimbursed expenses and tax a deduction on your income taxes.
my feeling is that its my phone. if he wants me to order materials, call inspections, down load apps, he should provide phone for his company business and the app he wants us to down load allows him to change things on my phone settings. He is getting time clock for jobsite after no one wants to down load app. if doesnt offer much as benefits and he needs us more than we need him. Im just waiting for better opportunity to come along.
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Engineer
Well I did, but being subject to the 2% exclusion (remember, she's an employee, not a business owner), we got no benefit from it tax wise, which made the suckage worse.
To bring it back to the original issue, this is going to depend a lot on what the laws are where you live. If there is nothing protecting you from an employer taking advantage of you like that, you may have to suck it up and/or find a better employer. But it might be worth checking first.
tadavidson
Senior Member
- Location
- Georgia
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
I don't pay my guys for being able to call them on their phones for job updates and service dispatches. But I do furnish them toilets and paper.. GOOD trade off huh?
- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Except for possible time and data charges, how is it being a phone any different than other requirement to supply certain personal tools?
Lots of 'cheap' apps mess with your smart devices, I can understand not wanting them on a personal device.
zbang
Senior Member
- Location
- Roughly 5346 miles from Earls Court
The except-for takes out the difference. That and the cost- smart phones are a good deal more expensive than most battery drills. The fact that most people already have them is irrelevant.
My take is that if you want me to use my personal phone for more than casual business call/texts, give me an allowance (half the monthly?), but don't expect that I'll always answer. OTOH, if you want me to install specific apps (which have privacy concerns) or want it at my side all the time, get me a phone which I'll only use for business.
How is damage handled? When I'm out on a site, I'll probably leave my personal phone somewhere safe. If I need to carry it everywhere, who's gonna replace it if get knocked out of my hand or is stolen?
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
+1
Then if you have guys that are constantly taking personal calls, texts, or social media interactions while on the job, another discussion we have had on the forum before .... what does it hurt to ask them to use a little of that phone for their work since they are constantly using their phone to take away from their work? If you are asking for quite a bit of use out of the device maybe you should be providing it, if you are just asking for casual communication from time to time, yet allow them to take some of your time for personal communication seems like a fair trade off as long as it doesn't get too abused by either party.
Some sort of understanding needs to be there from the start.
My wife has had jobs that required her to clock in/out, submit information about her work, etc. via any type of internet connection - no reimbursement whatsoever for owning a device, subscription to services, etc. that can get this done.
As an employer, you maybe consider reimbursement, not necessarily for entire cost of owning/operating a device - for the most part it is a direct expense, not a wage or salary which will be subject to payroll taxes, which has benefits for both employer and employee when it comes to tax time.
Strathead
Senior Member
- Location
- Ocala, Florida, USA
- Occupation
- Electrician/Estimator/Project Manager/Superintendent
Like so many issues, this one is a case of a few bad apples. Not really much different than say, piece workers being required to be paid time and a half for work over 40 hours. I am not in the field any more. As a foreman though, I used only my company phone. I didn't own a personal one. That was before smart phones though. There are so many ways that a mutually agreeable arrangement can be made for phones. It is just too bad that a relatively few bad employers and employees ruin things for everyone.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
That is a lot of it right there.
If you are the employer, phones are cheap, and cheaper yet if you just give them an allowance for your needs and let them get whatever bells and whistles they want on their own.
If you don't think phones are cheap look into providing health care coverage for them at any level, along with how much that may cost just to do the paperwork in comparison.
If you gave an employee $10 a month as a reimbursement for business use of their personal phone - both parties would be happy, or at least they should be. That $10 is a reimbursement not taxable income. The employee doesn't have anything deducted from it, they sort of need to fill their end of the deal by keeping their phone bill paid and equipment running though, most younger people can't live without such devices though so probably not too many problems in that area. The employer doesn't need to do extra payroll tax tracking nor do they have to pay their share of SS tax or unemployment tax on this amount because it isn't taxable income.
JohnE
Senior Member
- Location
- Milford, MA
I haven't had any change in employees in years (3 guys), my guys do a great job and we run very smoothly. They have their personal phones, but aren't really required to. They decided long ago they prefer just to have theirs. I used to provide phones. But I'm wondering how everyone is dealing with personal phones on the jobsites. Do any employers prohibit the personal phones? I can't imagine how much they slow production. Or is use restricted somehow?
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
If you gave them a phone for business use would you put restrictions on it when it comes to personal use? If not then how much it effects work production is likely about the same either way.
Before there were cell phones, I remember working in places where certain employees were constantly being paged to answer phone calls. Some management employees is understandable that many of those calls were business, but most of the production employees that got paged a lot was likely personal calls nearly all the time.
I also remember the days of knowing the bosses' (is that correct usage?) calling card number when making long distance calls from customers phones for business reasons, as well as knowing many regular clients numbers to try to track the boss down if I needed to contact him, and getting many calls from the boss on customers phones when he wanted to contact me. Simple text messaging ability has increased productivity potential from that perspective, then comes all the personal messages to slow it back down.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
I use my personal cell phone to make and receive calls and texts for my job all the time. It doesn't cost me anything (my plan has far more minutes and data than I ever use) and I don't want to carry two phones. YMMV.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
But that is not the same as your employer mandating you use your personal phone for business use or insisting you have your phone available at any or all times for their business use.
This is something that has sort of being taken for granted anymore - that everyone has a portable phone. Though it is mostly true, some do have limited calling or data plans while others have unlimited plans. Your usage habits may make one plan more desirable then another.
- Status