Is an employer supposed to either provide a device, or pay for the employee to get a device, if the employer is requiring some form of MultiFactor Authentication?
My employer has flat out refused to pay any money towards my phone, but I am required to have a phone or similar device to run an application to support their Multi Factor Authentication.
For that application to run, there are certain restrictions on what I can run and manipulate on my device.
My understanding of things is that if I'm using my device to satisfy a workplace requirement of the employer, that they should be paying me for that privilege; and that if I didn't have a device or didn't want to pollute my device with their application, that they should provide me with a device to fulfil that purpose.
Given that I no longer have full control of my device (I can't e.g. root it or put a custom firmware on it and still have the MFA apps work) I would expect that the employer should be paying me for the use of the device.
However they have flat-out refused to provide or support. "We don't give phones to Swiss employees" is what I have in an email.
I know some here would say "you're getting paid enough, why not just do it" but that's not the point. There's a strong principle in play here. I don't see why I should be paying to support my employer's desire to increase profits at my expense - when I do not benefit directly or indirectly from that policy.
To be clear: You dont need to have some mobile contract, but we are talking about some smart phone with google or microsoft authenticator on it. You probably dont need any data but can use the wifi both at home as well as the office? So we are talking about a 20 CHF one time investment for some used phone off ricardo and you can root the heck out of your actual mobile...
I understand your argument... but I dont think it is a battle worth fighting for. At all. More like the stapler in "Office Space"...
I know this happened at a non-Swiss bank in Switzerland. All the work phones were taken away and everyone expected to use their own private phone for this and also for calls.
This behavior is a red flag. If necessary, a judge can order access to bank documents and communications. However, no individual has any obligation to keep any information or data on a private phone. Also, it will take a while to get access to dozens or hundreds of private phones, slowing down potential investigations.
It may just be dumb cost-cutting, but in a bank it looks suspicious.
Standard practice... all the other banks issue phones but the employees use their private ones for "shadow IT" for anything that should not go on record on the side. And we are not talking about the intern... remember that CS "spy scandal"... the financial regulator found out that even the CEO, COO and pretty much the entire senior management used telegram on the side... but did not manage to get the info... so they did what they do best and issued a small fine to the bank with zero effects on the bosses who did it. That will teach them!
"Entgegen den bankinternen Weisungen wurden etwa externe Kommunikationsmittel (Text-Messaging-Dienste) eingesetzt. "
I did already have a second personal phone for the "work" stuff, I've always separated my work from my private life, and I will never answer the private phone for anything work-related. I do love the ability to place the work-phone down at the end of a working day and that's it. I'm not paid enough to be cheapening myself by being overly-available, and I'm not paid to be available after-hours. When I'm on the clock, I always ensure to do the best I can, but that stops once the working day ends. I think I'll be putting in an expense claim for the past X years of phone usage + phone cost, and see how they go about refusing that.
@biro - thanks for the useful feedback /s. Neither funny nor useful. If the employer would drop me because my devices aren't capable of running the employer-required application, that really doesn't look good for the employer now does it? It's not in my contract to be required to support the employer like that so they wouldn't have grounds for a termination.
@Axa - Oh, I'm very well aware of the corporate governance aspect, but I really don't care if the employer is failing to maintain their own requirements or standards - I'm not affected by that as I don't (currently) have direct access to client-confidential or finance-confidential information. At least not with the current projects I'm on. I don't have email access or file access on my personal-work device. I've made damn sure of that at this point! Not even web-based or cloud-based through a browser. The only thing I've allowed currently on my personal (if work-allocated by me) device is the employer's MFA application.
@landers - yes I have seen this too - and it's a *major* red flag for an organisation to move their data flow to outside of the regulated zones. I wouldn't be surprised if that bank ended up being taken to task for that.
@mica - thank for that. Yes, it's good to see it's in the legislation, and I know that it wouldn't be worth the fight if it were the only issue ongoing. Still, it's very useful information to have.
i'm guessing your employer also requires you to be clothed, but will not contribute to your clothing budget. i guess you could refuse also to use your clothes for work purposes and go to work naked.
Based on Swiss law alone you may have a case. But your employer appears to be foreign (or multinational?), that may make a difference. And the reply you quote doesn't exclude monetary compensation.
You can get a new phone for a trivial sum, a prepaid card will make you reachable basically for free. This isn't a hill I would want to die on.
ETA:
That's a useful thing in every case (as long as the amount isn't trivial). Provides ammunition for this case here, as well as for the next discussion on your salary. What annual amount, roughly, are you talking about?
If this is not the only issue, I wonder whether you're gearing up for a conflict with your employer. From the replies on this thread, it doesn't seem that anyone agrees with you that you'd be due any payout for having made your phone available for your work, so it's probably as well that you opened this thread, to hear those opinions.
I wonder how much that bill would be. Not much, I think. In Switzerland the whole concept of "costs" typically refers to extra costs incurred over and above what one would have had, anyway. You probably have an unlimited phone contract, anyway, and probably unlimited wifi, so that your extra costs, if any, would most like be very low (perhaps the costs of having bought a cheap, second-hand phone).
For your own safety, please note that in Switzerland, any employer can terminate any employment contract, at will, and they can call it restructuring, and be done with it. The only exceptions are during pregnancy and maternity leave and, to some extent, during illness, and that they may not terminate based on discrimination.
I'm not sure you'd actually understand if it was explained to you... what do you think it is like to have to manage a problem employee? According to yourself, you work the minimum hours, are unreachable out of hours if your colleagues need you and then you wast the mangers time on this kind of thing while others get on with the job. If the coming recession requires cost cutting don't be surprised which list you end up on.