Go on, buy your workers a smartphone. You know it makes sense

iphone 5s getting dusty

Here they buy iphones as standard which is why one is sitting in my draw getting dusty. Shame they did not get Sony Z1 compact

Buzzword

Buying smart devices for employees instead of doing BYOD, particularly if you already provide them with feature phones, is largely common sense but something lots of organisations don't do partly due to costs but mostly due to politics. These days entry level smartphones cost the same or less than a basic feature phone from many corporate mobile network providers so cost is much less of an issue, it's really mostly down to the politics of the managers at what ever level used to be allowed smart phones when they were expensive not wanting all the drones to seem like they have fancy shiny gadgets now to.

Using these lovely (but utterly pointless) buzzword acronyms of COYD and COPE, perhaps those managers can be beaten round to allowing, since we all know how managers like buzzwords.

CYOD or more in more traditional offices you can choose to use it or someone else will.

Standard and BYOD

I am going through the process right now. New boss keen to get everyone connected etc. BYOD suggested as most employees complain about having to have 2 devices, the problem? No one want's to use their own device for work purposes. No one wants others to have their personal number.

So at the moment we are going with a low cost smart phone issued by the company as standard or BYOD if you want a different make or model.

You can keep your "connected"

I worked at a small aerospace firm a couple of years ago and the salesdweeb wanted everybody to get iPhones so we could all stay "connected". The last thing I wanted was to be getting calls and texts after working hours. I had to bitch when I found that some kind soul, probably the salesdweeb, connected my cell phone into the phone system so vendors and customers would be routed to my cell phone instead of the company investing in a small office phone system with voicemail. His email memo trying to generate support for having everybody get iPhones (could have been Android, doesn't matter) was met with my email that they could bloody well pay me up front for a full two years of contract cell service or provide the phone/service with the company on the hook for it. I think that most of the staff felt the same way and the proposal died a deserved violent death.

The big question is "why". Why do all these management zombies come back from their retreats with silly notions about handing around company phones? If the job involves out of office work, it makes sense to have a company issued cell phone, but for everybody else, a phone at the desk and voicemail works just fine. Why is it necessary for employees to access the company's network with their personal phone/tablet? They'd spend less time checking their FarceBook account if it was coming out of their own data plan.

Maybe I'm missing the whole point and getting free data access and kit at work by trading off-hours for it is the way things are now. I prefer to be off-line after my 8 or so hours are done. If the company wants me after hours, they can pay me on-call bonuses. Only once or twice has anything needed to be addressed after I had left the office. The rest of the time, dealing with it the next morning was good enough.