Discussion on Banning Cell Phones at The Workplace

I choose this topic because, it is interesting topic for me. I don’t know when but while I was thinking for my own organization(future goal) it came into my mind. Now I have an opportunity to think about it.

Research says : Use of mobile phones and access to it at work place is significant. It causes: Average 48% impact on the quality of work produced at work place, Average 38% reduction in morale of colleagues picking up the work of the those on their phones, Coming to relationship with clients: Around 20% negative impact on relationships with clients, Around 27% employees at workplace missed their deadlines and There can by up to 26% loss in revenue.

According to research, 8 out of 10 employees carry their mobile phones to workplace. Out of these employees , 82% employees keep their mobile phones within eye contact at workplace most of time. When they questioned about their productivity, only 10% of these people believed that mobile phone usage at workplace affecting their productivity.

One survey in 2016 found that average employee at workplace spends around 56 minutes every day. This means around 5 hours per week, per employee. For example: if you have 100 employees in your organization, you are losing around 500 hours per week and you are paying for nothing which is equivalent to many full time employees salaries. If your organization have young employees then this situation is even worst. Coming to young employees aged between 18 and 34 spend around 70 minutes per day. That is almost 6 hours per week.

According to survey conducted by career builder, they found out that 65% of employees are spending their time for chatting, 51% for checking weather, 44% of for finding out what is going on in the world by news, 24% for playing various games, 12% for checking the traffic details , 7% for gossips, 4% for accessing adult sites and 3% are on dating sites. Scientists confirm that the presence of mobile phones has a “brain drain” effect on the user. Phone at workplace significantly reduces peoples intelligence and attention span to tasks.

What is the impact of mobile phones being kept in bags: two experiments conducted on people. Results of these two experiments were, if the mobiles phones were in a bag or handbag it still have ability to distract employees and lead to worse test score. When employees kept their phone in switch off mode and do not disturb mode, this situation was even worst. The study showed 10% lower score in completion of task which needed concentration and knowledge.Texas study showed that people who kept their mobile phones on their desk 28% increase in error those who received phone calls and 23% increase in error those who received text messages. One study by the daily mail saying that the phones doesn’t need to be “ringing or pinging”. When employees were asked to perform a digital task, those with pen and paper and kept their mobiles in bags performed well compared to people who kept their mobiles on desk.

As a manager, Can we separate mobile phones from employees? What will happen if you separate employees from their own mobile phones? According to the guardian, the results were something called ‘nomophobia’ which means ‘no mobile phobia’. According to Dr Kim Ji Joon, when people are separated from their own mobile phones, they often experience Anxiety, increase in blood pressure, increase in heart rate and unpleasantness. It is because more people feel as their mobile phones are extension of themselves. I can see banning mobile phones at workplace is like an outdated policy. I can say that, hire right people and give them freedom. It is less about employee use mobile at workplace, it more about you hire responsible person. As long as employee performance is good, no need to think about mobile usage. But when employee performance is not good then you have to think about it and then only you can argue about this topic. There is no reason to ban them. If you ban them then employees always think about their mobiles which is worse. Not having access to mobile phones even more distraction then having access to it. I can give suggestions like don’t ban them, hire good responsible people and train them for achieving organization goal. Give them specific time to use mobile phones. Give them access to calls and messages which are important and urgent. Our sounds of call should not distract other employees. All other sound except emergency notification sound should turned off. Employee should have knowledge of how mobile phone usage have impact on their performance so that they can realize the consequences and improve their performance. Finally, allowing employees to keep their mobile phone near desk may distract them and may reduce their performance. If you want to increase team performance and productivity, decrease error rate, improve team relationships them ask employees to switch off their mobiles and keep it in their bags and access them in specific time.