Employees Texting at Work - Fleximize

Employees Texting at Work

Could texting be stopped or is it a sign of a deeper problem?

By Marcia Smith

If you’re worried that employees are spending too much work time texting, there are a few approaches you can take:

1. You could explicitly ban phones or texting in the office, and write this into the terms of employment. Then, when you see someone texting you can take disciplinary action. Alternatively, you could invest in a signal blocker. However, this kind of blunt approach risks antagonizing your staff and causing problems when someone needs to use their phone in an emergency. Staff may also just step outside to text, or use email or a landline instead.

2. The best approach is to use traditional management methods to supervise staff. Rather than focusing on texting, monitor their productivity levels and quality of work. Also, if texting and phone use is proving a problem, take some time to investigate the causes of this. It’s likely to be a symptom of a bigger problem, such as a lack of emotional investment/ motivation in your company. Alternatively, if you are comfortable with productivity levels, then does it really matter if your staff are spending time doing other things?