Employee Smartphones and Cellular Hotspots

Administrative Procedure 7.107

Purpose

The purpose of this Administrative Procedure is to describe the process by which ECC will provide a smartphone or cellular hotspot to an employee who needs such a device in order to meet the requirements of his/her position at Elgin Community College. 

Eligibility

Certain positions at ECC carry a requirement of high or instant communication availability. These positions fall into one or more of the following general categories and may qualify for a college-provided smartphone or cellular hotspot:

• The position is an administrator who needs to be readily reachable on/off hours and during holidays due to the criticality of their role in College operations. (Examples: vice president, police chief, emergency services director)
• The position is responsible for critical systems or operations of the College that may require off-hours or holiday support. (Examples: network administrator, plant operations manager)
• The position depends on workflow tools such as emailed job tickets or telephone dispatching and requires the employee to work away from a desktop telephone or computer. (Examples: building engineers, computer technicians)
• The position regularly works off-site and needs to communicate to individuals or teams on campus (Examples: high school recruiters, community engagement director)

College-issued cellphones or smartphones and cellular hotspots that are convenient for the employee but not directly related to effective job performance are not appropriate and will be disallowed.  Eligibility for a college-provided smartphone or cellular hotspot shall be determined by the requesting employee and his/her direct manager after due consideration of the circumstances and requirements of the employee’s position at ECC. All smartphone and cellular hotspot applications must be approved by the appropriate Cabinet level administrator.  A college-provided smartphone or cellular hotspot is not an entitlement, nor shall past precedent dictate eligibility. 

Services Provided

Services and equipment provided to qualified employees under the terms of this administrative procedure will be managed by the Information Technology Department. Basic services may change from time to time but will generally include:

• Nationwide voice service for all devices
• A data plan for smartphones
• An option to have a smartphone act as a personal hotspot
• Normal device accessories such as chargers
• Periodic upgrades as provided by our contract with the wireless service provider

Additional service and/or equipment requests will require explicit approval by the appropriate Cabinet member as well as an explanation of why they are needed. Examples of these types of requests include:

• International service for smartphones (these services can be enabled and disabled as needed on each individual line)
• Specific devices or equipment not included on the college’s standard equipment list
• Extended data plans or mobile access point features

One-time and ongoing fees for these types of services may be charged back to the requesting department. Additional accessories beyond those provided by the service provider and replacements for lost or damaged devices may also be charged back to the employee’s department.

The Information Technology Department does not provide personal accessories such as covers and cases. Additional software and related services are not included in the basic service described in this procedure. Any extra-cost software downloaded to a college-provided device, sometimes called Apps or Widgets, must be paid for by the device holder’s department. 

Process

The “Cell/Smart Phone Request Form” form, found on my.elgin under Information Technology forms, should be completed, and the appropriate signatures should be obtained. The form should then be submitted to Information Technology for processing. 

Responsibilities

Smartphone or Cellular Hotspot Recipient

Employees who are assigned college-provided smartphones or cellular hotspots are responsible for protecting, securing, and maintaining the devices. The device holder is also responsible for all use of the device and should ensure that others do not use it. Information Technology should be notified immediately if a smartphone is lost or stolen. 

Employees should secure college-provided cellphones by enabling “Lock Screen” with an alpha-numeric password of at least 8 characters and users should enable any biometric authentication that is available. 

Incidental personal use of a college-provided device is allowed but will be subject to review.

Responsible Manager

The smartphone or cellular hotspot recipient’s manager is expected to be diligent in assessing the need for the smartphone or cellular hotspot and should periodically review that need as part of the recipient’s job. It is the manager’s responsibility to rescind the smartphone or cellular hotspot should the recipient’s job assignment or duties change in a way that obviates the need for the device. Should the device holder change departments, the request and approval process should be repeated under the new manager. The manager is responsible for returning the device to Information Technology when an employee is reassigned or terminated. 

Cabinet Representative

Each smartphone or cellular hotspot request must be approved by the appropriate Cabinet member. In addition, each Cabinet member must annually review the list of college-provided devices in use by their staff and reaffirm that the usage is appropriate. Upon request, Information Technology can provide usage detail by phone number to assist in this review. 

Information Technology

The Information Technology Department is responsible for managing the College’s wireless communication services including provisioning smartphones and cellular hotspots as described in this Administrative Procedure. Information Technology will handle all negotiations and service issue resolution with the wireless service provider as well as wireless device selection. Information Technology will review and pay the monthly service bill. Unusual and extraordinary usage will be highlighted for review and explanation by the responsible manager and the phone user.

This policy was last reviewed on 08/30/2024.