Should mobiles be banned at work meetings?

OPINION: Texting seems to be replacing the phone call and conversation. With more people now owning a mobile phone, it’s become more common place. Worse still, people do it during conversations and meetings. It’s the height of rudeness. Too much of it can be disruptive in the workplace and can alienate colleagues.

Three years ago, a poll found that text messaging was classified as one of the rudest behavioUrs in the workplace. And it’s getting worse.

Significantly, one of the first things Britain’s new Prime Minister David Cameron did when he came to office was ban mobile phones and Blackberries during meetings.

Stephen Overell, associate director of the Work Foundation argues that this might be the beginning of a trend. As he says, technology has been blurring the lines between work and life and we might have to start drawing a line.

Maybe, but where do you draw it? One of the great things about technology is that it allows us to do many things at once. And besides, we can always be contacted in case of emergency.

So the big question is how we manage this trend. If people find it that irritating, how do we make it less confronting? What is texting etiquette?

Publisher Willy Sawyers says texting has unleashed an "epidemic of rudeness". Sawyers seems to blame it on Gen Y. Maybe he should open his eyes. There’s no shortage of boomers and Xers tapping away at meetings or during conversations.

Writing in the New York Times, business professor Christine Pearson says it’s a worrying trend because it shows how more employees are using electronic devices to get away from the pressures of their colleagues and workplace. She warns this can have serious consequences.

"Through our devices, we find a way to disappear without leaving the room," Pearson writes.

"By splitting ourselves off and reaching out electronically, we fill empty interpersonal space and ignite our senses. We can find relief and a fleeting sense of freedom … Finding a mental escape can help us deal with the problem. But electronic devices have led to a serious overuse of this strategy — to the detriment of everyone.

"Count how many times this happens each day, and you begin to understand the cumulative effect of electronic incivility in the workplace. For one thing, other workers need to pick up the slack caused by the wandering attention and diluted energies of their e-cruising colleagues.

"Not only that, when people disappear from formal or informal meetings via their electronic devices, their colleagues interpret it this way: ‘You are less important to me than my cellphone/P.D.A./laptop/latest gizmo.’

"In my research, I’ve learned that when employees behave in an uncivil way, their colleagues may take retribution. They might withhold information — for example, by “forgetting” to include the offender’s name on a final product. Or they might see to it that he or she ends up with a less desirable task next time. Or they might even refuse to work with the person again."

So how should this be managed? Remember common courtesies. Don’t do it during conversations or at 3am and you don’t do it when driving. Also, have a think about where you are doing it. Waiting at a bus stop or at the dentist is fine, but not during a meeting or in the cinema.

- © Fairfax NZ News