With ever-increasing use of social media platforms and the wide variety of mobile phones and other technology at work, it is not surprising that one of the biggest killers of productivity is distraction caused by mobile phones. Having some rules in place will help your client to control the amount of time their employees are on their phones and not doing work.
Where employees are using work phones for their personal social media use, your client should check if there is a company policy on the use of works equipment. If so, this is likely to contain rules on whether staff can use work equipment for personal use and if your client has the right to monitor usage. Any rules on using personal mobile phones during the working day should also be checked to see what the employee’s rights are.
If there aren’t any rules already in place, your client should expressly set out their future intentions for mobile phone use at work. This can be done as an email, written memo or through the introduction of a formal policy. These should set out that, from a specific date, mobile phones should not be used during working hours and that these should not be placed on desks. It will also be important to state that a breach of these rules may result in disciplinary action. Ensuring that all members of staff are sent a copy of the memo or policy will ensure that no one can claim they did not know they were no longer allowed to use mobile phones or what the consequences are.
Once this notice has been sent out, the next time your client sees the employee using their phone for non-work reasons, they should take action. A dismissal for the first offence will be unreasonable so your client should give a low level warning and then increase the seriousness of these each time the employee is caught breaching the rules. This will prevent the employee concerned from using their phone and will also deter other employees from doing this too.
