Why It’s a Bad Idea to Use Your Work Email on Personal Phone
Why You Should NOT use Personal Accounts and Corporate Email Accounts On the Same Phone
While we’re all for efficiency, there are some boundaries that should not be crossed for everyone’s benefit. Take, for instance, the email you use to subscribe to online services. While it may be tempting (or, for some people, automatic) to use your work email address when you sign up for, say, your Netflix account or an online merchant, we wanted to discuss why this is a bad habit to get into that could have lasting consequences.
The reason you shouldn’t use your work email for personal purposes is a simple one:
You are no longer working for the company! Now what?
Seriously, we want to know: what’s your plan if your employment comes to a sudden end?
Let’s say that you were using your work email for an assortment of personal reasons—maybe you used it to subscribe to a few subscription services, or you used it to log in to a favorite online retailer or two… maybe one named after a really big river in South America.
Potential for distraction aside (which is itself a whole other can of worms), tying your personal life too much to your work life can have some long-term issues. Let’s say you did choose to use a work email to sign up for personal service, only to leave that job sometime later.
Regardless of the reason you leave—whether you or your position was terminated, you found another job, whatever—one of the first things that any responsible company will do is to deactivate your accounts from their system. Neglecting to do so would be a cybersecurity failure on their part. Good luck trying to recover a forgotten password when the authentication is sent to an email you no longer have access.
Businesses Should Actively Discourage Private Use of Professional Email Addresses
There are plenty of reasons that a business should want to keep their users from using their professional email accounts for their own personal purposes. We’ll quickly run through the list:
- Corporate accounts are readily available online in many cases, making them easy targets for phishing and spam.
- On a related note, it becomes a lot easier for a cybercriminal to find online accounts that are tied to a business email address and use what they find to craft more effective spear phishing messages—ones that are tailored specifically for a particular recipient.
- Many people still reuse passwords across many different websites and services, so if a website is breached that an employee’s work email was used to access, there’s a good chance that the password for your corporate email address could be stolen with it.
- A vast majority of password reset requests go to the registered email account. If your requests which should ideally come to your personal email account go to your work account, your emails may be subject to Freedom of Information Act Requests. This is especially true if you work for the the Federal or State Government.
Cybersecurity Over Convenience
While convenience is an appealing motivator, it is important that your processes are shaped to prioritize your business’ security. Educating your team about password best practices and the actual importance of this kind of work/life balance will be key to shoring up this particular security issue.
Strike the Balance with PointNorth
Turn to us for help with keeping your team members from inappropriately merging their work lives and personal lives, as well as our assistance in optimizing the rest of your processes. Give us a call at 651-234-0895 to learn more.
Communication Tools Your Business Needs to Consider
The software you choose to use for your business largely defines the capabilities of it. When it comes to communications there are some very standard options that you probably already have and then there are some more innovative options that can have significant benefits for your staff. Let’s take a look at some of the standard communications options a business might use and how they can use technology to crank it up a bit.
Standard Communications Tools
Most businesses today give their employees multiple options on how to communicate with other members of the staff, prospects, and customers. Some are typical of every business, while others are a little more advanced and come with larger price tags. Some of the most utilized communications tools for business include:
- Telephone
- Instant messaging
- Documents
For most businesses, communications are split into two categories: Written and Verbal. Most businesses should have systems in place to cover both types of communication. As for written tools the most utilized, by far, is email. It presents you with an accepted and respected way to communicate with almost anyone that you would need to contact.
Today’s hosted email solutions tend to have a litany of great and useful features that can not only provide a construct to clearly get your message across, but also manage incoming and outgoing messages. Most modern business email platforms include the following features:
- Daily backup of emails
- Virus protection
- Encryption
- Spam filtering
- Synchronization
- Push mail
- Archival
These options typically provide users with everything they need to do business using email. Not only do modern email platforms have features to make the process of sending and managing email easier, many of them have started to integrate a fair amount of security features. A business’ email system is extremely important and a well-maintained and managed email system can go a long way toward giving an organization a great business tool.
Instant Messaging
Instant messaging is one of the more utilized written communications tools. Not every instant messaging application is created equal, that’s to be sure, but for the most part the convenience and speed of instant messaging can be a major benefit for any business looking to outfit themselves with one. Some hosted email platforms will come equipped with one, while other stand-alone IM platforms are also available. Recently, there has been a big shift in the development of collaboration tools that feature instant messaging as part of a larger platform designed to keep your people on the same page.
Documentation
One often overlooked communication tool your business may have is the ability to provide employees and customers with written resources like pamphlets, white papers, and other documents. Most businesses today want their staff and customers to be as educated as possible and creating a repository of useful information, whether they are in the form of pamphlets, FAQs, or some other useful documents can save time and be very valuable.
Telephone System
Probably the most important communications platform your company has is its telephone system. The traditional telephone system that you would get through a dedicated telephone provider has some functionality, but if you really want to make strides with your business’ communications platform, consider switching to a VoIP system. VoIP can be hosted onsite or in the cloud and can provide a lot of powerful features that the traditional telephone system simply cannot.
One of the features you can buy through any VoIP provider is seamless video conferencing. For remote teams, or even extremely busy teams, a powerful video conferencing solution will give you access to a tool that will allow you to spin up meetings in seconds and provide you with integrated options in line with standalone video conferencing tools. This will help you save money and standardize the entire calling experience. Some other VoIP features you can take advantage of include:
- Automated attendant with advanced call management
- Caller ID
- Call queuing
- Call following
- SMS and MMS integration
- Mobile device integration
- Analytics
…And many more.
If your business needs help going over your communications options or if you simply need help getting the platforms you already have to function as you need them to, give the technicians at Point North Networks a call today at 651-234-0895.
Businesses Have Access to These 3 Powerful Communications Tools
What kinds of communication tools does your business utilize on a daily basis? Chances are that your communication infrastructure can benefit from some of the latest and greatest solutions on the market. Communication is one aspect of your business that you definitely do not want to skimp on, as failing to implement the proper tools can bleed into other aspects of your organization, including operations and, in return, your bottom line.
Here are three technology solutions that all small businesses should implement for their communication infrastructures.
Email & Instant Messaging
We know what you’re thinking—obviously a business needs email to communicate properly both internally with its team and externally with clients and vendors. However, we urge you to reconsider the way that your email solution is currently set up. Do you host it yourself on-premises? Is it properly secured? Can you access your work email on any approved device? Are you able to access it through the cloud? These are important questions to ask for the sake of productivity and efficiency. We at COMPANYNAME recommend that you work with us to set up a cloud-hosted email solution so that your business can focus on maintaining operations rather than managing an email server.
Instant messaging is another great tool that modern businesses can leverage to great effect. It’s perfect for moments when you don’t want to wait for a response to an email or for more urgent matters. That said, you need to be careful with how you implement instant messaging, as improper setup and training can turn this great productivity tool into a distraction.
Intranet Solutions
Consider this scenario: have you ever been neck-deep in a project only to find that important documents detailing the process for a certain task simply cannot be accessed for some reason? Unfortunately, this is often the case; documents can get scattered all over, and some employees simply won’t know the needed workflows or how to access certain accounts. This is why an intranet solution is such a valuable tool.
An intranet solution is a great place to house internal documents for helpful information such as workflows, portals to various services or tools you utilize on the regular, and more. Don’t discredit the value of having a single place you can go to locate just about everything your employees need to succeed in their day-to-day duties. Think about it as the “single point of contact” for any resources your employees need.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Similar to email, all businesses have a phone solution that they use for both internal and external communications. The unfortunate truth, however, is that the landline is a tool of the past. Whenever you have to add a user to the network, you have to run new phone lines, hook up new hardware, assign extensions, and so much more. This makes for a solution that is not growth-friendly and can work against your business’ interests.
VoIP has the potential to change the way your organization handles telephony in the workplace. Essentially, it takes your entire phone infrastructure and shifts it to the cloud where it can be accessed on any device through a desktop or smartphone application. This allows you to use your work phone number to make calls on a personal device through the Internet. All of the features of traditional telephony solutions are present here (and completely scalable), including call forwarding, routing, conference calling, and even some features that might not be present in your ordinary landline, such as video conferencing, IMs, and more.
Not sure how to get started thinking about your own business communication infrastructure? Point North Networks, Inc., can work with your organization to implement the best tools for its specific needs. Don’t wait any longer; get started with a phone call to Point North Networks, Inc., at 651-234-0895.