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Wed, Jun 25, 2008 13:22 EDT

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Posted by: Al Sacco in Questions Topic: IT Organization ManagementBlog: Mobile WorkHorse
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They don't call 'em CrackBerrys for nothing.
Research in Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry smartphone, along with a wide variety of Web-enabled mobile phones like Apple's popular iPhone, Windows Mobile and Nokia devices, can be downright addictive to some folks.
Addiction to anything, be it illicit drugs or cutting-edge gadgets, is unhealthy. In fact, Merriam-Webster defines addiction as: "Persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful." I think some BlackBerry users might argue their precious devices aren't harmful—and they're not really substances—but others more familiar with the dreaded BlackBerry Thumb and its potential health impediments would be more likely to agree that device obsession is a problem.
But another issue is coming to light as more and more businesspeople pick up BlackBerrys: What 24/7 smartphone connectivity, which is the first step on the road to BlackBerry addiction, means to the businesses and corporations that issue such devices to their employees.
A recent fracas between ABC-TV, a handful of its writers and producers and the Writer's Guild of America East (WGAE) may be a harbinger of things to come. To make a long drama short, ABC staffers requested that they be compensated by the company for time spent on their BlackBerrys outside of normal working hours, according to CBSNews.com. At first ABC denied the request, saying an "agreement" between the company and its employees had been in place for years that states no overtime pay would be doled out to writers with company BlackBerrys, Telegraph.co.uk reports. ABC then issued waivers to its BlackBerry users asking them to acknowledge that they may be required to use their smartphones during off hours without any additional pay.
That's when the WGAE stepped in and instructed the writers not to sign or agree to the terms within the document, which prompted ABC to revoke the non-compliant writers and producers' BlackBerrys, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine.
Shortly thereafter, the disagreement was reportedly settled, with the return of the confiscated BlackBerrys and the agreement on the part of ABC to compensate its staffers who use their mobile devices "beyond routine." So, in effect, ABC said it will pay the BlackBerry users who employ their devices most frequently for work outside of traditional hours. And you can bet the company also created its own official corporate smartphone overtime compensation policy, to help avoid such confusion in the future.
This approach of creating an official BlackBerry overtime policy, is becoming common—though I suspect few companies are actually agreeing to pay for afterhours smartphone use. In fact, a number of attorneys suggest that organizations follow ABC's lead and draft BlackBerry-use policies before they're brought to court by disgruntled employees or workers claiming to be suffering from related health ailments like carpal tunnel syndrome.
Jeremy Roth, an attorney with San Diego-based Littler Mendelson, told The National Law Journal that he thinks it's only a matter of time before employees realize they can win legal claims for overtime payment related to BlackBerry-use while outside of work. And Roth says employers may have a tough time disputing claims because BlackBerry devices, and carrier service records, could be used as proof that the staffers were indeed using the devices during the times they claimed.
One important component of the issue is whether or not employees are contractually "exempt" or "non-exempt." Federal labor laws say that nonexempt employees are eligible for overtime compensation, while exempt staffers—typically
It would be interesting to see how younger employees that grew up with these gadgets respond versus the older generations that are just getting into the technology.
At the last firm I was with we tackled this issue up front by not giving Blackberries or any type of remote access to hourly employees. If a request was made for remote access it had to be approved by the section manager and it had to be shown that any overtime incurred could be billed out and they had to define a time in which the access would be removed. This did keep requests to a minimum.
Hi J,
Good point on the gen X/gen Y comparison.
However, I don't think the issue is really with hourly employees. Most of the office workers I know and/or have worked with in the past who have company smartphones are salaried staffers.
As stated in my post, I believe organizations are going to have to address afterhours smartphone use as the devices become pervasive, but it will likely involve some sort of clause in a contract that stipulates employees will not be paid for such "work." I can't imagine that many companies will actually pay their employees overtime for BlackBerry use.
AS
That's the trend, - work harder for less.
I can't believe IT workers are too dumb to organize.
This is definitely an interesting problem, and one that's now affecting me directly. Since I have an iPhone, I'm now able to respond to email in a more timely manner. This is great during the workday. However, I'm now starting to check work email in the evenings and on weekends and vacations, often writing in order to get things down before I forget. It's true, I do have a choice as to whether I decide to respond, but having the access - and my company knowing that I have access - makes me feel especially compelled to be totally available at all times. In fact, it seems almost irresponsible not to respond.
I wrote our policy this way - if folks are out of the office during business hours they are required to be available by cell or email or both, unless they have a pre-arranged or emergency personal engagement where they will be unable to respond. After hours, we've left it up to each person to decide whether or not they respond. Being writers who often work at odd hours late into the night, it's likely that they will; however, perhaps surprisingly, we have not had issues where folks have been slaving away after hours and feeling resentful - and this may be due to the fact that we reiterate our expectation that they be as productive as possible during the business day so that they do not feel pressured to continue working into the night, and that we expect them to preserve a healthy balance of work and downtime -- otherwise known as the oft-cliched "work-life balance".
I sometimes wonder if having this kind of accessibility encourages lesser productivity during the day (except perhaps in business situations where projects typically experience extreme swings in activity during the production cycle and in situations where the labor involved is highly dependent on an often-erratic creative process) - the thought process being that if one can respond later, then why bother acting on it right away?
Do others have thoughts on this?
This timely & very well written article by Al Sacco addresses some relevant issues for both public sector and private sector entities.
It was wisely pointed out that corporate use policies arguably should be written concerning the use of e-gear. The corporate counterclaim could be made that uses for e-solitaire, e-humour, e-chats, talks about Friday & Saturday nites, etc. are non-compensible.
It may sound "old school", but one should use personal discretion in how they use these devices. There is the factor of e-auditing, with regard to both voice and data forms of communication. As one who had a voicemail box in 1983, "back in the day" no one really hacked into one's messages. But today, public and private sector entities arguably have more reasons to audit different forms of media on a "for cause" basis, i.e., when white collar forms of crime are reasonably suspected.
(Prof.) P J Gammarano, M.A., J.D.
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