Most owners and senior managers I interact with view personal cellphones as a problem. They’ve received customer complaints about employees talking on the phone while on their properties. Thus through the customers’ eyes, the people they’ve paid to do a job are being inefficient and distracted. Therefore management sees lost profits. Is this you?
I completely understand the frustration and dilemma these owners and managers face. I’ve been there myself. At the same time, social norms are changing. Technology is advancing. The use of personal cellphones increases every day, and the trend will continue. If we’re going to define the use of personal cellphones as a problem, we must acknowledge the problem only is going worsen. However, what if we looked at this situation through a different lens? What if the personal cellphone weren’t a problem at all? What if it actually was a beneficial tool to be leveraged by a progressive owner or manager?
A personal cellphone is simply a device. It’s neither good nor bad all by itself. How a cellphone is used determines whether it’s a helpful or harmful tool—no different than any other tool. For example, what would you say if a field employee showed up with a brand new pair of pruners, purchased with their own money? Would you be upset and ask the employee to return the pruners to his or her locker or personal vehicle before punching in? Of course not.
Just like a pair of pruners, a personal cellphone is tool. An employee who lacks respect for the company he or she works for may not hesitate to make personal phone calls, send text messages or surf the web from their device. This same person most likely will take advantage of the company in a number of other ways. The person is the problem, not the phone.
On the contrary, a personal cellphone is advantageous for a resourceful employee. The ability to communicate with supervision quickly, send photos, download maps, route vehicles efficiently, check weather conditions, etc.—all from their hand-held device, without leaving the job site—is a miraculous thing. I’d rather have an intelligent and informed employee than otherwise. The phone is a tool. The person holding it has the power to use it appropriately or inappropriately. If the true issue is a lack of respect for the company, the cellphone is probably the least of your worries.
My sense is that well-intentioned efforts to ban personal cellphone use will be counterproductive in the long run. Personal cellphones are here to stay, whether we like it or not. Let’s find ways to make these tools more useful for us instead of trying to outlaw them.
