Olivia Maier
If you are a part of an SMB or growing business, it can sometimes feel like it is impossible to separate your business and work-life from your personal life. This might be more true now than ever, with more people working remotely than ever before. When your work life starts blending with your personal life a little too much it can lead to unintended consequences. While there might be certain factors that can’t be controlled, keeping your personal belongings separate from business is crucial to having a balanced and productive work and home life. One area where this is especially true is your personal mobile phone.
When it comes to personal belongings, it doesn’t really get more personal than your mobile phone. Your phone number is a direct line and connection to you, no matter the time of day. Think about it, you aren’t walking around handing out your personal phone number to everyone you meet. It’s something that is inherently private, but that is forced to change the second you start using your mobile phone for business. Using your phone number for business calls can lead to your personal phone number becoming known or saved by parties that you may not want to have that type of personal information.
Not only does this cause your business life to encroach on your personal life, it can also lead to decreases in productivity and sanity in both your personal and business life.
Think about it, your mobile device is also full of things designed to pull your attention away, between incoming alerts and easy-to-click distractions, it can be hard to put your phone down once you pick it up.
Not only are you forced to fight against distractions when you start using your personal phone for business, you also might be experiencing other things that lead to a less than productive workday. Incoming calls are hard to distinguish between personal and business calls, making you more likely to answer a call that isn’t relevant or to miss one that is relevant.
Using your mobile phone for business calls doesn’t only test you as an employee, but it can put additional pressure on your personal life. While companies are required to reimburse you for using your mobile phone, it can lead to a complicated and time-consuming process before you actually see any reimbursement. You also are subjected to your personal phone number becoming widely known, which can lead to business calls coming in well outside of working hours.
You or your business might not be able to provide all employees with a company phone, or a hardware phone for remote workers. That is perfectly reasonable as these are massive expenses for a business to take on. But where does that leave you?
A cloud-based phone system is able to provide the perfect middle ground, where the company isn’t forced to invest in buying company phones, but your team is able to keep their personal phone number separate from business!
One of the major benefits of a cloud-based phone system is that it isn’t tied to any physical location or hardware. Instead, team members can access the business phone number from any device, including their own mobile phones. With a system like Yodel, employees can easily access the Yodel mobile app and use the app for both incoming and outgoing calls. The calls are made from the designated cloud-based phone number, meaning that your personal phone number never has to be used even if you are making a call from your personal mobile device. Calls can also be made or received from tablets, or a computer.
This solution can help you differentiate between work and personal calls, as you’d be notified by Yodel of any incoming business calls instead of the general phone notification. This would help reduce the temptation to access your phone for non-business purposes, increasing your own productivity.
This system is also great for businesses to take advantage of, as it reduces the need for a lengthy reimbursement process, and it can provide a central unified communications process instead of having employees siloed off on their personal devices.
Using your personal phone for business isn’t the best solution for you as an employee, or for your business. Taking advantage of a cloud-based phone system is a better solution for all parties involved, and when you choose a system like Yodel you are able to unlock countless other benefits designed for teams like yours.
