I work for a company that works with tech and telecommunications products, before you think that's impressive I'm on the low paying retail store end of that industry, commission and all.
My job requires us to use various apps on our phones for communication, to set up or complete assignments, cross-store shipping among branches, scheduling, and clocking in and out. Management uses them to track time, sales, activity, and for pay as well.
My company without any warning ahead of time has changed their systems which require new apps and upgrades to a couple older apps still in use. I found this out when I could no longer use Kronos (which is now UKG iirc) app to clockin, and contacted corporate.
While there were others complaining about the change mostly due to abruptly needing more space for the apps file sizes, I was among the most impacted because my phone is not compatible with any of the new apps at all. In fact, the apps won't even show on the app store because my phone does not have the specs. My leadership will not help me resolve this and they won't charge me an advance on my check to get a new phone.
Instead they gave me a threatening tone saying I will not be paid at all unless I can get a new phone to handle the new requirements, that is also including preventing me from clocking in. Since the apps track location and involve your phone number, they would know if I used another persons device to clockin for work, which they told me if I were to try to do that would result in immediate termination of employment.
This is a problem because payday is not until next Tuesday, and I already couldn't clockin to work today, so my next scheduled day is this Friday, and my company has a no tolerance policy if you don't show up to work 2 times on days you're scheduled, which if you don't show up results in losing employment. The problem is that's less than 48 hours and doesn't give me enough time to order a cheap phone online, forcing me to shop in store, but after already paying for important bills and necessities recently, there's no budget to suddenly buy a new phone.
I looked at prices for my local retailers, Best Buy, Walmart, you name it, and the cheapest phone in stock of all the places I visited nearby, is for a Blu Studio X5 at Target, which can get those apps, but it's $84.99 which after tax will be over $90, and that's not possible right now.
I've tried various methods to get the phone including credit and loans, but don't qualify or don't have the right bank or some other issue. I basically have to get a new phone between now and tomorrow Thursday before my next shift on Friday, and if I don't figure this out that will be two days absent which means bye bye job.
I looked into ways of maybe forcing my current phone to meet the spec requirements, or trick the system into giving me access to downloading the apps on the store, but the specs would still be a problem so that won't work.
It's completely unfair they would do this without prior notice, even sending an email and giving us time. Phones are expensive, and now they expect me to just buy a new one to be able to work. It shows that these highly paid managerial staff have no interest in the lower workers below them.