I’d lock them all up! .
The point I’m making here is that, whilst the modern world doesn’t seem to be able to function without most everyone over the age of 6 having a mobile grafted to their ear, at the same time they disrupt efficiency.
Before mobile phones became common place, office staff still had a telephone on their desk and if there was an urgent call (someone taken ill, a child’s school for example) the call was passed through. The challenge for managers in today’s office environment is that everyone has a mobile phone and hence a distraction. The impact on productivity must be huge.
From my own experience I have seen programmers sitting texting instead of working and ladies with children who insist they are “unavailable” to their children if they don’t have their phone on their desk – what abject nonsense. The challenge for me in that office though, was the concept had crept up on us (us being the management team). It was difficult for management not to have their mobile with them either because clients would call on them and simply got used to doing so. In the same breath of course, a company wants to be available to its clients and a mobile is a pretty efficient way of doing so. However, what does one say to the average Joe in the office when the managers have their phones on them all the time?
Of course the office environment and particularly the hi-tech office environment must be the most likely to suffer from this problem, let’s face it, it wouldn’t be possible in a busy kitchen for example and perhaps if the council were happy for its road sweepers to text their pals whilst working, it’s a little bright time in an otherwise grotty job.
I’d be really interested in other opinions, but if one things for sure, if I was setting up another company, it would be in certain peoples terms and conditions ( except sales, management and customer services perhaps) from day 1 that mobile phones were not to be brought into the office or they’d be locked up until home time!
