[Michlib-l] Employee Cell phone use

[Michael McGuire]

If you have anyone with a smart phone (or maybe that is what you mean by a cell phone) or other "mobile device," especially if the person is under a certain age - which I won't specify - it will almost certainly be necessary for you to have a "mobile device" policy. 


The smart phones/tablets/pads are used for old-school voice telephone calls, text messages, social media messages, web use and more with a huge number of "apps" that do a lot of "stuff." They are virtually addictive and amongst avid users almost ubiquitous in their use - unless controlled. Younger people in my current office - which is not a public contact office - take them out and look at/use them, I would estimate, every ten minutes or less. Our organization has an (old) policy that business phones are not to be used for personal calls so the organization is playing into the use of mobile devices which can, of course, be used for personal communication on a number of levels. The organization's internet is also filtered to bar access to email and social media sites - which also encourages the use of mobile devices for personal communication. 


Since personal communication is no part of public service, I would suggest that use of personal mobile devices be prohibited unless the employee is "off duty" (break, meal, etc) AND away from their work location. The library should be providing all the necessary tools for work-related communication and public service (computers with appropriate access to needed resources) so there should be no need for personal mobile devices in the work space. A policy providing for that should be fairly easy to draft. 


I expect that this approach will be fairly unpopular with those who are tied to their mobile devices, but I strongly believe that public service employees (paid for providing public service) or volunteers (who have offered to do public service) should be ready, willing and able at all times on duty to do just that. They should not be distracted or seem unavailable to patrons due to personal device usage. The same would be true for conducting other personal activities (e.g. balancing a checkbook, doing crosswords, etc - which can also be done on mobile devices - or sewing, filing nails, arranging a stamp collection, sorting laundry, etc - which cannot). 


Michael McGuire
Grand Rapids, Michigan
mdmcguire(at)yahoo(dot)com
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