How Do You Handle Recovering Personal Mobile Costs from Employees on a CUG Plan?

Hi All, I have often found this site useful. Can someone help me with this topic as I am not sure how to work this out?

Recovering Mobile Usage Costs from Employees

When you have a CUG plan in your company and the company directly pays the bill, how do we recover the mobile usage costs from the employees used for personal calls?

Please help.

Regards, Kritika

You provide them with limitations on using the phone (i.e., a Rs. 1000/- bill can be reimbursed, and any amount above that should be deducted from the employee's salary). Please implement this on a band-wise basis.

Regards,
Sheela

As Ms. Sheela advised, you should set limitations for employees based on their designation and usage. For example, there are a few executives who frequently roam. Sometimes, they even travel out of the state, leading to higher charges for roaming expenses. Similarly, senior employees often make more official calls, so it may be necessary to allocate them a higher limit.

Thank you.

First Step: You fix upper limits grade-wise/position-wise.

Second step: Circulate these proposed upper limits to all Heads of Departments for review and inputs. They are responsible for it.

Thirdly, Most Important: Certain positions/roles require a lot of outbound calling to numbers that are not within the CUG. For example, HR recruiters will have to call candidates, so every outbound call is charged because CUG is free within the CUG numbers of the same group and corridor. Purchase officers will have to call vendors, so their usage will be more.

Then there is a group of employees who we know travel outstation regularly. Hence, on roaming, charges will be high.

Once you get these inputs...

Step 4: Prepare an Excel sheet of all employees and write their entitlements. Then circulate the sheet department-wise to all HODs. They are responsible for reviewing it and will assess the usage depending upon role, position, and function.

Once HOD approves...

Circulate in writing the entitlements to all employees with a proper written notification that these are the approved entitlements. If the amount increases, it will be deducted from salary, or he/she must submit a special approval from HOD with justification. For example, sometimes an accountant has to visit an outstation branch due to the ill health of existing staff and sudden leave or some inspection or audit. Then for that month, since he/she was traveling and/or doing some special task, so his/her outgoing was more, which is justified and approved by HOD.

If you require any other assistance, feel free to write or contact:

RAJESH SATYAL

It is better to determine the mobile usage policy depending on the nature of the job the employees are doing. For example, usage in the Marketing and Purchase departments will be higher compared to other departments. If you have a record of usage for one year, you can calculate an average and set the amount accordingly. Any excess usage should be paid from the employee's pocket. Do not allow any calls to be made on holidays, Sundays, or late at night.

Regards,
Sriranga