One of the things I notice more and more as I walk thru the office or on the job site is the prolific use of cell phones, every employee from laborer to senior manager has one provided by their company or a personal device with them at all times. In 1999 I was working on a project in Atlanta as a Superintendent and was provided my first company cell phone and at that time it was a little unusual to see one on the project.  A few years later Nextel started promoting push to talk, the Blackberry was the next in a series of field communication improvements and finally we are seeing the smart phones with apps that provide all kinds of construction solutions. I am not saying we haven’t improved communication, or improved the time it takes to get changes into the field and reaped the rewards of immediate group communications in the event of an onsite emergency.

My concern goes more to the casual use of phones on the project, random conversations between family and friends, texting with your buddies on the upcoming game, the numerous diversion games like Angry Birds and so many social media sites I cannot begin to list them all. What does all the indiscriminate use of cell phones cost us in terms of productivity loss and can this be quantified into financial cost as well. Is there a correlation between accidents and the use of cell phones and distracted driving or distracted walking for that matter.

To gain a little insight on the amount of time we may be talking about the National Bureau of Economic Research published a report that stated employees spend as much as 55 minutes a day on non-work related internet tasks and a similar poll by the NY Post stated employees spent as much as 42 minutes on personal communications at work per day.

So now for some simple math if you work an average of 100 people a day on your project and they spend an average 50 minutes on their telephones doing non-work related tasks that is a whopping 5000 minutes or 83.33 hours per day and at an average hourly rate of $15.00 per hour you could be loosing $1250.00 per day to the internet, $6250.00 per week or $324,000.00 per year. This of course does not include any of the fringe benefits or taxes employers pay as a cost of keeping the employee on the books and assumes a very conservative hourly rate.

I think the costs are a lot higher as this does not count the cost of once distracted, how much time does it take the employees to become re-engaged in their work and does not even begin to imagine the cost of work if it is not installed correctly or an accident occurs.

If I multiply this loss across multiple job sites and companies we are talking about millions upon millions of dollars in lost productivity and revenue.

So this is the observation and my swag at cost but what can be done to resolve the issue?

Can we effectively ban job site cell phone use to all but employees deemed by their employer to require a cell phone for work use?

Can we provide additional project training on what is expected and a hardhat identification sticker showing you have been authorized to utilize a cell phone on the project?

Can we implement a policy  stating cell phone use other than by those who have been authorized and trained in its use is prohibited except in extreme emergencies?

How do you manage this same problem in the office and the desktop computer or device?

What would our work force say or do for that matter, I know as time has gone on I struggle with the use of phones or IPads around the office for non-work related tasks, would the millennials we all employee just quit and move on because of the current work climate and how would they would perceive this effects them and their freedoms?

What are your current policies on phone use while on the project, do you actively enforce your policies, what do you think this costs you in terms of revenue?

J. Hughes

Project Superintendent
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