How to better separate your work and personal life on Android

More and more companies are now encouraging BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device. Under this, employees can use their personal phones for work. But combining work and personal phone in one also makes it difficult for people to separate their work and personal lives.

With BYOD becoming popular, now there’s an increasing awareness among organisations to help employees demarcate their business and personal communication, content consumption and interactions. That’s where Google’s work profile feature for Android devices comes in.

Separating your work and personal life on Android

Remote and hybrid work has forced us to look at our work lives differently. As a result, that has had an impact on our personal lives too. Around 65 per cent of employees have stated that workplace stress has created difficulty in other areas of their lives. The primary cause for this was the blurring of lines between work and personal lives.

Now, Google is here to help. Understanding that smartphones are the primary devices through which employees access both work and personal communication, the search giant has rolled out a feature called work profile that can help separate the two.

What is a work profile?

Designed for Android devices, a work profile separates personal apps and data from work apps and data. A work profile allows users to safely use the device for work and personal communication. First available to its enterprise users, the feature is being rolled out to Google Workspace users in 2022.

With a work profile, you can disable all work-related apps when you want to disconnect from work. Once you activate it, those apps won’t be able to send you any notifications. They also won’t be able to access your location.

When you enable it, your personal data will also be separated from your work-related apps. This ensures that your organisation won’t be able to access your personal information on the device. If your work-related apps are installed and monitored by your company, they will only have access to those apps.

How can you set up a work profile on Android?

If you have a work profile, on your Android device, you can go to ‘Settings,’ then ‘Accounts’ and look under the ‘Work’ section. In certain devices, it will be directly under Settings. But if you don’t have a work profile, there’s a way to set up a personal profile.

Setting up work and personal profiles on Android

Unlike adding a second number to your Android device or setting up auto-reply on iOS or Android, this requires some ingenuity but it’s worth the effort. The key to separating your work and personal lives is to enable multiple users on your device. Here’s how you do it and set up a work profile:

1. First, add a secondary Google account

2. Go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘System’ on your device

3. Click on ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Multiple Users’

4. Bring it into the ‘on’ position

5. Click on the line that says ‘Add User’

6. If you can’t find the ‘Add User’ feature on your device, search for it

7. Create your secondary user by adding a name like ‘Sean Personal’

8. Enable the toggle next to ‘Turn on phone calls & SMS’

9. Swipe down twice from the top of your device

10. In the lower-right corner, find the ‘person’ icon

11. Tap on it and wait for your device to switch to your personal profile

12. Go to your home screen and add your primary Google account to this

13. Add all the apps and widgets you would want for your personal profile

14. You can keep the same app for both profiles and customise their notifications

If you have a Samsung device, we do have some bad news for you. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work on those devices.

Chalkboard: Separate work from personal on Android

Tired of combining your work and personal phone in one? How about an easier and more effective alternative? Chalkboard is that solution that will help you separate your work and personal lives once and for all. It’s a second number for work designed to give you a better work-life balance.

Once you download the app, it will only take a few minutes for you to get your new number. You can share this number with your colleagues, clients, vendors and customers. This is the easiest way to protect your personal phone number.

Chalkboard comes with advanced messaging features that let you engage in conversational marketing with your customers. You can broadcast SMS to whole groups without revealing your private number.

Whenever you’re too busy to take a call, you can set up an auto-reply for missed calls. This is how you ensure that work doesn’t intrude into your family time.

So, you get an additional number without having to buy a new device or configure complex settings on your phone.

Download Chalkboard today and try it now. This is how you finally say goodbye to combining work and personal phone in one. 👋