my coworkers won’t answer their phones, ever

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I feel bananas asking this, but could you give me a read on how/whether people still use phones in office/remote office work in 2025?

I have a fully remote, customer-focused job for a tiny organization, and no one on my team will use phones. I have the most customer interactions and am willing to answer my phone if one calls, but I wind up getting calls for everyone on my team, because none of my colleagues will pick up their phones or even return voicemails. At most, they will email and agree to schedule a Zoom, but mainly they just ignore calls entirely.

I don’t mind helping out, but I have very different functions and access to systems from my colleagues and often I CAN’T help. I tell customers to contact the relevant person but they say, “Oh they never respond,” which I know to be true so what can I say?

My colleagues have told me phoning people is old-fashioned and anxiety-provoking and they don’t want to deal, so they don’t, but the customers are … how we make money?

I am not a receptionist and don’t have the ability on my phone to forward calls. I find it awkward and somewhat demoralizing to spend my time taking messages and asking colleagues to respond to calls.

I have spoken to my colleagues about the customers having the right to do business how they wish, English language learners having better spoken English than written, and that a quick call can replace 10 emails. I have not found a way to bring up the fact that some of them tend to both lose and misread emails, so calls are better for nipping that sort of thing in the bud.

I have brought this phone-phobia up with friends who work elsewhere, and some have said they just refuse to use their phones too! I don’t love using the phone but I don’t love lots of things about my job — that’s what the money’s for!

Am I way out of step here? Is there a solution I am not thinking of for a fully remote office where only one person uses a phone? I should say, the volume of calls is actually pretty low, but it is still embarrassing when someone calls with a problem for a colleague and I have to tell them that person is just not accessible by phone, not ever.

No, you are not out of step. Your coworkers are being ridiculous — and negligent, it sounds like.

It’s true that lots of people don’t like phone calls! Before email and other text-based methods of communicating, calls were the only real option for quick communication so people used the phone without much thought; there were no alternatives. Now that we do have alternatives, a lot of people have grown much less comfortable with the phone — most likely, simply from using it so much less often But it’s still a normal and required part of many, many jobs … and that clearly applies to your coworkers’ jobs because customers are calling them.

In theory there are jobs where you could decide you won’t deal with customers by phone, but those are typically jobs where you are the boss or self-employed and have the standing to make that decision and to accept whatever trade-offs come with it, like potentially losing business. That does not appear to be the case for your coworkers.

It sounds like it’s time to talk to your boss, since you’re ending up having to deal with your colleagues’ customers because they won’t. Tell your boss what you said here: you’re getting calls for everyone else on your team because they won’t answer their phones or return voicemails, you’re often unable to help, and when you tell callers to contact the relevant person they tell you they already know that person never responds. Tell your boss it’s interfering with your work and leaving customers unhelped, and ask for her assistance in resolving it.

From there, if it keeps happening, cc your manager on every phone message you take for your coworkers. Having their boss cc’d on “Client X called and said they need to talk to you and you haven’t returned their messages” may get action where trying to appeal to their general sense of responsibility hasn’t.