Unconventional employee perks are becoming more common these days, and setting up your workers with complimentary cellphones is one of the more productive options. Footing the bill for your employees’ phones can keep the whole workforce in touch, on or off the clock, and really helps drive home the message that you’re all pulling together on a team. Springing for your workers’ cellphones can also wind up saving money via discounted group rates, depending on how many numbers you’re paying for.

1. Cellphones Are a Nice Employee Perk

From your employees’ point of view, company-paid cellphones are a great employee perk. Canadian cellphone bills are among the highest in the developed world, and switching to the company plan at no cost certainly makes a difference to employee morale. This is even more of a perk if you’re willing to pick up for their iPads (or other tablets) and maybe an extra line for a family member.

2. Stay Connected

From your perspective, paying for cellphone service for everybody can be a great investment in team building and streamlined communication. When everybody in your company has a reliable cellphone, keeping teams in touch is as easy as exchanging numbers. This lets you push through rapid changes to a project and be sure everybody stays on the same page. Unlimited texting also encourages friendships to form between workers that can boost morale and keep conflict levels low.

3. Reach Out After Hours

If all your employees have cellphones, you’re never out of touch. It goes without saying that all of the numbers your company pays for would be listed in the company directory. That makes it really easy to fire off a quick after-hours text to project managers or ask a salaried employee to come in on a Saturday. You can also quickly ask a question and get an answer from an employee who might be off for the day but who has information you need.

4. Standardized Technology

There’s no end to the variety of modern cellphones, and not all of them have the same capabilities. If you have people working in the field, or if you occasionally need a picture taken or document scanned, standardizing the technology everybody works with is a great way to be sure it can be done. Choosing one type of phone when you set up the company plan also ensures cross-compatibility of file formats — super for sharing documents and media — and of apps the company uses for third-party verification or scheduling.

5. Save Money With Group Rates

Picking up the bill for dozens, or hundreds, of employees’ cellphones has a surprising extra benefit: it can save money. That’s not immediately obvious, since you are still paying, but there’s a big difference in the rates you get for 20 people together and what it would cost for each of those 20 to sign up individually. Remember that the paycheque your employees get from your company is likely to be their only source of income. That means their current, expensive, cellphone plans are indirectly paid by you. By signing those employees up to a steeply discounted group rate, even if you deduct half the cost from their paycheque, you’re saving yourself and your workers quite a lot of cash each month. There may also be some tax benefits to offering cellphones as a perk.

Company cellphones are an increasingly common employee perk. It’s not hard to see why, since there are so many advantages for both the company and its workers to sharing a plan.