Should You Give Your Employee a Tablet or a Cell Phone? Here’s How to Decide

Many businesses realize that giving their employees a tablet or a cell phone is a great way to help promote employee productivity. Whether you’re giving employees an easy way to communicate with other employees or providing them with an extra platform to conduct work on, it can be hard to decide what kind of device you should provide your employees. Should you give them a tablet or a cell phone? Here’s how you can decide for yourself what you need to make your business as successful as possible.

The Cost

There’s a big difference between the price of a cell phone and the price of a tablet. So if you’re on a budget, you may want to keep this in mind if you plan on purchasing a device for your employees.

Tablets, depending on the model, often cost a significant amount more than a cell phone. But most cell phones will often need to have a cellular plan purchases alongside them. If you buy a tablet that doesn’t have cellular capacity, you may end up paying less for the tablet over the course of its lifetime than you would a cell phone.

Functionality

Keep your desired functionality in mind.

A smartphone is capable of handling simple tasks and can have productivity apps such as Slack downloaded onto it. But with a smaller screen it often isn’t suitable for completing work like spreadsheets or data entry on it. It does provide a handy way of getting in touch with other employees of the company though, so it’s a great choice if you need a quick and easy communication tool.

A tablet, on the other hand, often has the same capacity for working on it that a laptop does. Users can create documents with word processors. They can make spreadsheets, comb through data, and complete a variety of tasks that can’t easily be done on a smartphone thanks to its larger size and larger quantity of storage space. It’s a natural choice for employers who’d like to give their employees an easy way to do work outside of the office.

It’s Situational

The kind of device you give your employees can depend on the industry.

Do your employees need to write documents, complete spreadsheets or do other kinds of office administration work? If so, give them a tablet. If not, a cell phone is just fine.

Are your employees on call all the time? Cell phones often provide an easier way to get in touch with employees regardless of whether or not they’re within range of a Wi-Fi router or not. Consider your industry, your needs as an employer and so on before considering purchasing a device for your employees. In many cases, buying a device may be unnecessary so consider what you’re looking for before you let your employees walk away with a device.

Monitoring Them

Of course, when you decide on giving your employees a device, there is one thing you should know. You can still effectively monitor both using cell phone spy software for Android and iPhones. There’s no fundamental difference between tracking the two and you should be using spy devices for cell phones or tablets when you give either to your employees. This protects both your investment and helps keep your employees on track.

Whether you decide to give your employees a tablet or a phone, that all depends on your personal needs as an employer and what your company could stand to benefit. Consider the capacity of both devices and what features you think would benefit both your company and your employees. You should also consider looking into different cell phone spying software and how each of them will allow you to monitor your employees. Giving your employees an electronic device is not something to be taken lightly and you should consider all facets of your decision before making a purchase.