Hi Steve,
We are challenged, like a lot of other employers, with the issue of cell phone use – mostly texting these days. When my husband and I were discussing this – you were the first guy I thought of who might be able to help. Could you send me a policy for cell phone use that I might be able to use to write ours from?
Frustrated in Atlanta
Dear Frustrated,
You are correct to be concerned about cell phone usage/texting. It is literally an addiction and creates a huge negative Moment of Truth in the customer’s home. Here is the ugly truth. As long as you allow your employees to carry their own cell phones into the customer’s home you will NEVER stop their inappropriate behavior. Sure, you can threaten and scream but at the end of the day they will do as they please since there is no accountability there.
Yes, we have a great Procedure in the SFS operations manual. Basically it reads “nice” but is just a lot of fluff. Why? Because UNLESS you ban personal cell phones and institute company cell phones that are “blocked” so that employees can ONLY receive office calls and ONLY send outgoing calls to the office your people will continue to do what they want.
So IF you want to go through the grief AND TURMOIL of doing this just tell your people they can turn their phones in to the office and you will answer them and take messages. IF it is an emergency call you can patch them through to the employee working in the field. IF the employee has an urgent call to make to his wife, etc. then you will be happy to patch him through to her. This system does work but you will probably have employees who are very upset. Your call on if the change will be worth it.
Note to all you owner-operator folks out there who have not yet hired full time employees. If I had not yet hired my first employee I would institute this policy from the git-go in a heartbeat. The problems occur when your people have already been running amok and you try to change things. Sigh ….
So Frustrated, let us know what you decide to do and how it all works out!
Steve