Avoid Employee Cell Phone Abuse

Looking for a way to save your enterprise or government organization tens of thousands of dollars a month or more on wireless mobile communication use? First off, it’s going to take some discipline and innovative management for your cellular communication services to become more cost efficient and less prone to abuse. Cell phone and handheld usage can bleed a corporation’s IT communications funding dry without so much as a turn of the head, or at least until it’s too late.

They're Everywhere ...

It’s more common than not for a large organization to have employees carrying company owned devices such as cellular phones, pagers, PDAs, and Blackberry devices. All these wireless devices meant to increase employee productivity are more than likely draining funds and ultimately decreasing actual corporate productivity. It’s an ever increasing telecommunications expense on a road to disaster.

One is Better ...

One way to better manage corporate employee mobile communication cost is to buy ALL cellular services through ONE provider. Buying through one provider gives your organization the chance to receive volume discounts. If you are giving your employees the opportunity to purchase their company wireless device themselves on the corporate account, you are opening the door to higher rates and actually taking away control from the company as a whole.

Close To Home ...

Secondly, audit not just the usage, but who uses the mobile communications. You need to investigate exactly who is a necessity mobile user and who is not. An office employee who spends most of their time within corporate headquarters and who is not prone to traveling; may very well be responsible for inflated mobile usage. An employee calling friends and even relatives overseas is not entirely uncommon. This kind of abuse has been known to accumulate to a bill well over a $2,000.00 in a matter of days with just one employee.

Allowance, Not Just For Teens Anymore ...

It’s important to weed out vanity from necessity. If the hardship of striping cell phones and their usage from employees is too hard to bear, consider revising this strategy. A method that can be effective is allotting an allowance to employees on their usage. In other words, set up a preset amount of acceptable minutes per month per employee type. If any employee goes over their allotted amount of minutes, it is garnished from their paychecks. Many companies have deployed this method to curb abuse with much success.

Reward the Good ...

In addition to an allowance program, a rewards program could be put in place as well. To sweeten the sour, award the employee with the least amount of minutes a percentage of the company savings. Let it be announced beforehand and you may find employees trying to conserve so they can take home a larger paycheck. To make it more viral, perhaps first, second, and third place winners every month. That will ensure that employees know more than one employee each month will go home with a fatter paycheck. Increasing the odds always helps feed the fever. Works in Vegas, right?

Easier Said than Done ...

Now, keeping track of who is who and who calls what can equal to a big headache and ultimately take more time and money to manage. Luckily there are some companies out there that make a living from auditing and managing wireless bills or supplying the firmware to do so. While costs associated with such services vary, they are valuable and more importantly; save money. Some of the companies that provide these services include Let’s Talk www.letstalk.com, Traq www.traq.com, and Vercuity www.vercuity.com.

Carriers Feel Your Pain ...

Aside from these companies that audit, track, and manage wireless usage, the mobile communications industry has seen the aches and pains of employee abuse. Many cellular carriers now offer more cost effective wireless options for large employers knowing of employee abuse and the minutes (money sacrificed. In other words, lower rates for the higher volume to curb the cost of abuse whether or not it is taking place.

One of the better cell phone providers for corporate services is Nextel. They offer over the phone ordering exclusively for corporate volume clients for all products and services which include some good plans for busy mobile users.