Today’s HR pros are coming to understand that mobile phones in the workplace simply can’t be avoided, meaning they need to craft effective mobile phone policies if they’re to prevent employees from wasting valuable time and energy tapping away on their smartphones. Producing such a policy is often easier said than done, however, and many modern HR managers are struggling when it comes to designing an effective mobile phone policy that both permits their usage while stamping out excessive hand-held addiction that robs the company of the work of its valued human capital.
Here are 5 tips you can follow to ensure your mobile phone policy is effective, and the key missteps you should avoid when trying to implement it.
1. Don’t leave any room for misunderstanding
Far too often, today’s HR managers leave too much room for misunderstanding when it comes to their office’s mobile phone policy, often because they refuse to codify their policy and instead rely on in-person lectures that regularly go over their worker’s heads. If your HR department hasn’t put your mobile phone policy in writing, it’s letting its employees down, as they can’t be expected to memorize complex rules pertaining to the usage of their cherished digital devices.
First things first – put your policy down in writing, and make it incredibly easy to access at any time. When your employees can easily brush up on your office’s mobile phone policy, they’ll be less likely to shirk the rules, and won’t have an excuse for failing to follow them in the first place.
2. Don’t stick to digital notices alone
This second tip ties directly into the first, largely because HR departments don’t go far enough when it comes to making their policies clear to employees; if you’re relying on digital notices alone, for instance, you’re already setting yourself up for failure. After all, most of today’s professionals check their emails predominately on their mobile phones, meaning you’re merely shooting yourself in the foot if you try to dictate how they use their phones by sending your policy to those devices.
Don’t be afraid to go old-fashioned, and include printed notices hung around the office to make it easy for everyone to remember the rules. This isn’t to say that digital approaches should be ignored, but rather to reinforce the idea that spreading your policies across multiple platforms is the best way to ensure workers see it often. Cut your over-reliance on email down, and you’ll be helping your employees stay off their hand-held devices.
3. Be fair, and know when to make exceptions
Savvy HR managers will understand how vital it is to be persistent in the enforcing of rules; after all, if your workers see that your managers and senior executives are ignoring mobile phone policies in the workplace, why on earth would they follow those rules themselves? That’s why it’s crucial to lead by example when it comes to mobile phone policies in the workplace, and ensure that the higher ups aren’t unduly forcing unfair rules on their employees that they themselves don’t follow.
An important part of consistency is knowing when it’s the right time to make an exception to the rules, too; review the basics of when it’s appropriate to make exceptions to any HR policy, and your mobile phone policy will be much more equitable and workable than before. For instance, if there is an emergency, then use of cell phones should be allowed. In remote offices, you can even use signal boosters to help employees stay in contact with loved ones at home as necessary. After all, hand-held mobile phones are a vital part of modern life, and can’t always be ushered away.
4. Master fighting mobile phone addiction
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you’ll understand how crucial mobile phones are to many of the day-to-day activities of people everywhere, whether they’re at work, at home, or enjoying some leisure time. That’s why you need to understand the outlawing mobile phones entirely in the workplace is a ludicrous proposition. That doesn’t mean you can’t regulate their usage, of course; as a matter of fact, hand-held mobile phone addiction is a growing problem, particularly among young adults, meaning HR departments have a responsibility to help their employees out when it comes to kicking their addictive habits.
Learn how to take back control from mobile phones, and you can start helping your employees who have a serious addiction to their smartphones.
5. Understand it’s an uphill battle
HR managers trying to stymie all mobile phone usage in the workplace are doomed to failure. While you’re fighting an uphill battle, however, you’re not doomed to making no progress despite your best efforts. Be lenient with employees, and impose a strike system for excessive mobile phone usage, rather than punishing them severely for minor violations, and you’ll have much more success when it comes to convincing them to put the phone down. It’s not easy designing an effective policy, but with time, patience, and elbow grease, you’ll see productivity going up in no time.
