Employer wanting to confiscate cell phones upon arrival....legal?

So this morning we all came in to work, business as usual, and all of a sudden the sales manager tells us that starting next week, every employee arriving in the building must turn in their cell phones to the manager, only allowed to retrieve them during lunch, breaks, and leaving. I think this is BS. We are not a publicly traded company, a small business with under 50 employees in NC. I see this as a liability issue. Ironically, today happened to be the day my home alarm went off (false alarm due to motion sensor) and the alarm company called me. Do they really expect the alarm company to call my 1-800 work number and wait till it prompts to get me if there is an emergency? Any opinions on this? Not sure how to approach this.

 

Just leave it in your car

 

If it's a private company and the owner wants to be a dick, then so be it. I don't agree with it but what can you do. The way things are going though get ready to lose a lot more than just your cell phone at work. I assume the reason for all of this is cell phone usage of Facebook, twitter an so on.....?

 

Put your phone to vibrate, and hide it, get a cheap 2nd phone to hand in when you show up at work ...

 

My employees can bring it, but only use it during break because of safety and health reasons...,seems legit to me

 

Workers misuse phones all the time, texting, yaking, and crusing. Costs employers $$ in lost productivity.

But may be a liability issue for the employer, if an urgent call goes unheeded for the employee.

 

What state do you live in? If it's an at will employment state they can do pretty much anything they want, because you don't like it? See ya! I am hearing more and more about this kind of thing and gotta say, can you blame them? People waste hours every day with their phone! Facebook, texting, sexting, CandyCrush...

 

Some of my job sites dont allow them (security issues) so we ask to just leave them in there vehicle or risk losing your job being caught with them. I have fired them before, so...

 

I can understand this. If I were running a company though, I couldn't justify confiscating personal property. I would tell employees to please leave cell's in your vehicle or turn them off when you walk thru the door.

 

I don't see the issue. We've got guys that sit all day texting their wives, girlfriends, mistresses, checking sports stats, ect., not getting shit done.

If there is an emergency, I'm sure they can call your place of business to contact you.

 

NC

 

While I think you should just leave it in your car. I wonder how the boss is going to keep up with 50+ cell phones on who's is who's. As well as privacy of they decided oh I wonder what Wanda has on her phone.

 

Don't like it, quit. It's a free country.

 

Also are you currently at work typing this?

 

If your enployeer is only allowing you to turn in a phone, then I'd have an issue. But if they let you leave it in the car the.n I'd ha e no iproblem.

My work has a no phone policy in lots of places including worksites. The only people who complain are the ones on Facebook all the time.

But I will say to have the system work good there has to be emergency contact available. For my work they allow us to give supervisors number, General foreman, and resource numbers to family for emergencies. Those folks can get a hold of the project we are on and get a hold of workers quite quick when needed.

 

So there are businesses and situations that must require a no cell phone policy. Without disclosing too much, I work as the IT Director of a secured facility and cell phones are an absolute "NO" when anyone travels in the secure areas. I have sensors installed that detect cell phones and their signals before anyone gets in. Many companies are required by the federal security guidelines in the NIST specifications (IT security guys know what NIST is) that disallow cell phones, USB drives, cameras, etc. to protect their records. This is required in financial, law enforcement, and medical organizations. The fines are huge and will kill an organization if a breach occurs. I require that ALL cell phones must have a Mobile Device Management (MDM) installed that tracks locations, and data so it can be cleansed and disabled by the organization if missing. Our wi-fi connection does not connect if MDM from the organization isn't active on all mobile devices including laptops. My brother works as an engineer for a chemical company and they have many patents. The company doesn't allow cell phones or other devices around company protected intellectual secrets either.

I don't know the nature of your organization but they may be required by federal security practices to tighten up security. I wish I could tell you all of the attacks that are blocked from all over the world. You would be shocked. It's a scary time for IT and data breaches.

 

Confiscating or in this case "turn in your phone" willingly is the issue. Its your property, they can only enforce a no cell phone policy. They cant "make you" give up your property. If they loose or damage your phone are they going to repair/replace it.

 

I thought about sticking it in a plastic bag and shove it in my ass cheeks and see what happens. come search me !

 

Connect your phone to the works WiFi.
Walk in, hand it to your boss.
Get a Moto 360, connect it to works WiFi.

Bam, other than taking phone calls you can still email/text all day long from your watch.

 

Set it on vibrate and post your # here!