Tough question. Most times when people are using their cell phones at work, it is for personal reasons. If it is being done blatantly or obviously, it can be a real rub for the management staff. They are essentially using company time for personal stuff — not fair to the employer.
I know several companies that have banned the use of cell phones from the workplace, allowing them only at break time and at lunch. I personally think that this should be the appropriate goal. It is not just an issue with people being on their cell phones, but if they ring or beep with a text message while someone is on the phone with the client, it can be distracting. The other issue that is starting to arise is texting, which does not place the cell phone in someone’s ear, and can be done in their lap — being even more covert. The strong majority of all of this is personal and is taking away from the business. Cell phones should be kept out of sight, and not on desks where people can see incoming text messages, etc. Distractions are costly to business.
I think you know I am an advocate of promoting culture rather than rules. If you can have a companywide or departmentwide discussion on this whole issue and ask them to respect their business time and use cell phones only at breaks and at lunch, unless there’s an emergency, it could go a long way towards everyone being committed to not using them during work. If that fails, then a policy or a rule is the next best choice.
Some businesses do allow personal phone calls if they are kept short. This is the other way to go with it — by saying that cell phones are allowed for very brief phone calls but anything lengthy should be done at break or at lunchtime.
If it is one person who seems to be abusing their work time on the cell phone, then I would take the approach of having a discussion with that person. Sometimesthe resultant “buzz” is enough to get everybody to stop.
If there are people in your operation who use their cell phones for work, enforcement is much easier, because if the employer has given them the cell phone, the records are available to the employer to check personal versus business use.
Bottom line, the excessive personal use of cell phones and texting during working hours is a drain to the productivity of the business, and can be career threatening to the individual abusing the privilege.
Marsha,
I have to quibble with you a bit about this. The important question with regard to any job performance is: Is the person completing his/her work on time and at least competently? If the answer is “yes”, then what does it matter whether he is using a cell phone at work? If the answer is “no”, then the issue is work performance; use of a cell phone is just a symptom.
Texting at work can be a distraction, just as e-mail can be. Done with moderation, I don’t think it should be an issue, again so long as the work is getting done and done well.
The notion of “working hours” becomes muddier each year as more and more employers expect workers to use their so-called personal time for work. If employers even implicitly expect workers to monitor e-mail and paperwork on weekends and vacations, how can they reasonably object to workers using “working hours” for some personal matters?
To paraphrase Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson of http://gorowe.com, work is something you DO, not someplace you GO. If employees are getting their work done, employers should not care about anything else.