Are smartphones hurting your staff?

A key part of workforce management is ensuring that employees are highly productive. After all, if workers aren't handling all of their responsibilities in an productive manner, your company won't be operating at peak efficiency.

Of course, cutting-edge technology is thought to be a huge contributor to increases in productivity. From HR software to video conferencing, new technology is designed to help businesses and their staff members reach their potential and become more efficient.

However, one popular type of device may be hurting more than it's helping. At first glance, smartphones seem like one of the best things that ever happened to the corporate world, but recent findings indicate otherwise.

In an article for the Harvard Business Review, Ndubuisi Ekekwe explained that there's an assumption that using smart devices boosts productivity, but it is also jeopardizing long-term productivity by eliminating predictable time off that ensures balance in our lives. 

Ekekwe supported his anecdote by pointing to research in Leslie Perlow's "Sleeping with Your Smartphone: How to Break the 24-7 Habit and Change the Way You Work." A study indicated that 78 percent of study participants who were told to spend one night per week off their phones were satisfied with their jobs. Meanwhile, only 49 percent of people who used their phones every day were similarly happy.

Russell Johnson, an assistant professor of management at Michigan State University, explained to MSU Today that smartphones prevent the work day from ever ending.

"Smartphones are almost perfectly designed to disrupt sleep. Because they keep us mentally engaged late into the evening, they make it hard to detach from work so we can relax and fall asleep," Johnson said.

It's a slippery slope more than anything. At first, a worker will take a couple of calls after his or her shift. The next step is endlessly checking emails. Finally, employees are on their phones so long that they stay up later than usual and disrupt their natural sleep cycles. As a result, people will start to burn out and become disengaged with their jobs.

What can you do?
In your company handbook, you can recommend staff to turn off all nonessential features unless they're working late to meet deadlines. This recommended policy will ensure that your employees have a sustainable work-life balance and aren't overburdened.