Excess Mobile Usage

Hi all..My concern consists of nearly 170-190 employees and now we are facing the problem of excessive mobile usage & online chatting. We have extension phones in all the desk for official purpose and personal calls couldn't be done with that phone.Already we posted notice on Mobile usage policy but despite it happens. Giving memo & warnings will not be suitable. I need a good and positive suggestion from you to deal this problem.

Dear Brindha,

If employees get time to talk on mobile or chat then it appears that they some amount of disposable time with them. Therefore, rather than chasing them for not talking on mobile phone, you may do the workload analysis and find out whether they have sufficient work.

In your company you face a challenge of people talking excessively on mobile. In few companies opposite happens. People of few companies are (in)famous for not attending or returning the calls.

Secondly, do top management officials prefer "phone" as media of communication? Do top boss has habit of picking up phone and start talking? Is he reluctant to write mail? In modern workplace, one should use all type of media of communication i.e. e-mail, SMS, telephone, WhatsApp message and so on. When to use what media of communication individual's discretion. However, lopsided emphasis to any one of the media obviously impacts the work. In your company's case it is telephonic communication.

Thirdly, do employees work beyond their specified working hours? Is working late is a custom in your company? Do top level official like people to work late in the office? In that case, make a rule that all employees must leave their workplace exactly in time. For working extra, they should take permission.

Fourthly, about socialisation. While socialisation at the workplace is important, has your company promoted culture of over-socialisation?

Lastly, about concept organisational communication. Possibly, your company has given too much importance to the personal communication. Now personal communication has started overriding the organisational communication.

In view of the above, I recommend you having a look at the organisation culture of the company. Discuss the issue with the managers. Find out what are their problems. Talking on phone could be a job requirement also. For example, average Purchase Manager talks on the phone for at least 4-6 hours per day. But then this is what the nature of his job is. Therefore, find out who needs exemption.

Average Indian is garrulous. We are not impersonal like British. To certain extent you could be challenging the DNA itself!

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Hi Dinesh,
Thanks for your valuable inputs. In our concern there is no need for employees to use mobile because we have local messenger & mail for communication purpose inside office.Also we have extension number to speak with customers and colleagues. We do understand that incase of any important personal call they can answer. But now it keeps on increasing and there is a distract from the work(if they get a call they will move out to speak and return back after sometime). Since the count is high it is not possible to keep track on all and giving continuous warnings will not be good. I need an effective idea to resolve this.

I had this experience in our office wherein we were having weekly meeting with participation of departmental heads and Human Resource Managers. Various issues were discussed and minutes of meetings were recorded and circulated.Subsequent meetings also dealt with checklist whether issues of previous meetings were closed.There were a number of employee engagement activities as well as appreciation cards. The JD and KRA were well defined and the score below 80% in KRA was not acceptable for 2 quarters consequetively.In KRA 20% weightage was also on productive use of manhours which contributed significantly in final KRA score.A person who is wasting time by speaking on phone etc were observed to score less in KRA as also targets were not completed. Additional points on KRA were provided for creativity and Kaizen in own domain of work and saving cost of the company.So it was more of a carrot and stick formula.All this helped as KRA was well defined and person attaining more than 95% in KRA were appreciated. For creativity and Kaizen they were appreciated in open forums.