Telephone - Options

The nature of your work will dictate the best telephone solution for your role, which you will discuss with your line manager:

Microsoft Teams with a headset is the standard method of making and receiving calls between staff members. Voice and video calls can be made in this way. Calls to partner and external organisations (such as neighbouring authorities, the NHS, WG etc) can also be made via Microsoft Teams.

We also provide a Softphone option for staff who frequently make incoming and outgoing calls from their working location. The softphone allows you to have an extension number and a Direct Dial Number (DDI) on your laptop. This will allow you to make and receive external calls from your laptop using your headset. There is an additional cost per softphone licence, which will be charged to your service.

Smart Mobile Phones are also available for staff who need to make and receive calls and be contactable out of hours or are community based. Council provided smartphones have access to some systems such as Outlook for email. Your departmental mobile phone representative should be contacted if this is a requirement of your role. There is an additional cost to your service for smart mobile phone purchases.

We also operate a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Scheme. Staff may be able to enrol a personal smartphone into the council BYOD scheme. This will allow you to access council emails and calendar from your personal device. We do not pay any of the costs associated with using BYOD on your personal device and this is a voluntary scheme for employees.