We are revamping some of our policies and the question came up as to which was best for the company when it came to laptop ownership: company-owned or employee-owned? I think the owner's biggest concern is as we go with live with remote access to our network for the techs (for dispatching and service info), we don't want to expose our database without certain protections in place. This is both security/malware software and written agreements between employee and company. What are your companies doing in this situation? What are the best practices that benefit the tech and the company both?

Some interesting discussions from the past...

http://dnet-km.com/eve/forums/...961063872#7961063872


http://dnet-km.com/eve/forums/...441045723#5441045723

Personally I feel that employee owned laptops are treated better than company laptops. Generally they guys with the clean company vehicles have the nicer kept company laptops.
JMO
Z

I agree with 313ZD we have done it both ways and the employees take better care of the equipment if they are responable for the replacement of damaged goods. We also require that the employees purchase thier own tools (except jigs and alignment tools) they seem to not lose them or break them when they have to buy them.

Alignment tools! haven't seen anything like that since the Xerox 9900, LOL!

Any dealer that does not provide there techs with laptops are not real dealers/companies. If a company can not provide there techs with the tools they need then they are hacks. with no loyalty to there employees

Agreed, these are tools by the tech to perform a specific job for the company, therefore, they should be provided by the company. Just do an equipment check when you do vehicle inspections/employee reviews, it will quickly show who looks after their **** and who doesn't!
We are going to netbooks with an auto update feature to pull the latest updates from the OEM's web sites, will let you know in 6 months how it works out.

Company laptops? Reviews? How about providing your own vacuum cleaner? HA ! Very funny!

All my techs prefer to own theier own tool kits ....however we do provide laptops