RGL "PIPELINE"
 
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13724 Venetian Court, Orland Park, Illinois 60467
Office 708-301-6425  Fax:  708-301-6455 
 

Providing Human Resources Consulting for Small to Mid-Size Organizations

 
April, 2010
Top 
Greetings!
 
In this month's issue we explore yet another area to be added to your professional radar: harassment through text messaging. Even as you stuggle to maintain control of routines at work and attempt to keep your plate from overflowing, you should heighten your awareness of your behaviors (and that of your employees). Adding checks and balances to ALL communications is a must - now you can add texting to your list as well.
 
In the second article we address teams in the workplace. Teamwork has always been a foundation of success for organizations. This article highlights just a few of the benefits that teamwork has on individuals and its impact on the overall organization.
Cell Phone 
Textual Harassment!? 
 
The popularity of text messaging has boldly entered into today's workplace. People who insisted that they would "never text!" have fallen victim to its emerging popularity. Its just not the teens and early 20's crowd who are constantly pecking away at a QWERTY keyboard on their phones either. Whether it is a quick message to a co-workeer that you will be 5 minutes late for the meeting or a personal text to the office across the hall, individuals need to be aware of its implications.
 
The increase of texting across all ages is dramatically on the rise. It is no different than those age groups using social media as I identified in last month's Pipeline. It is skyrocketing. The number of text messages sent and received is staggering. In a recent quarter, three of the biggest service providers (Verizon, AT&T and Sprint) reported handling over 210 billion text messages. Again, that is for just a three-month period. The number of text messages nearly doubled from 2007 to 2008, and has continued to rise in 2009. Texting is forecasted to continue to grow exponentially for the foreseable future.

What's the risk?
Much like email, texting cannot express emotion or tone of the message. As people exchange texts back and forth there is a danger that the recipient isn't as receptive to the message as the sender would hope. Enter "textual harassment".  This spells disaster in the workplace. Texting is a casual way to communicate; its even more casual that email because of the nature of most messages. This informal and relaxed approach can easily lead to inappropriate or offensive comments; even if that was not the intention of the sender.
 
So, what does this mean for employers?
There are already a growing number of lawsuits and employee complaints that include offensive text messages as evidence of inappropriate behavior, most commonly flirtatious messages from male supervisors to female subordinates or co-workers. Earlier this year, a public university in Michigan settled a sexual harassment case involving text messages as incontrovertible evidence of the behavior.

What can employers do?                                 
Employers can help prevent textual harassment and defend against harassment claims involving text messaging by creating a specific text messaging policy for employees  and others connected to the organization, to compliment their current (hopefully) discrimination, harassment and other policies. Employers should make it clear that harassment will not be tolerated,  is considered a violation of company rules and is unlawful, however it is communicated, whether through text message, email or spoken word.
 
Employers are advised to also have a policy in place regarding digital information. The policy should inform employees that their e-mail and texts are to be used for company purposes, and may be monitored periodically.

If an employer issues cell phones to employees, it may want to consider whether text messaging will be allowed on those phones. If so, the employer needs to make sure that the employees using the phones understand that they have no right to privacy, and that all text messages are subject to search and can be obtained/reviewed by the employer at any time.

When investigating a claim of harassment by an employee, the employer may want to review text messages between  employees to obtain an unbiased view of the nature of the communications.
 
Once policies are written or revised, you should provide regular training to the employees on such policies and require your managers to diligently enforce them.
 
These are a few of the most important steps employers can take to address the challenges of text messaging in the workplace and avoid liability.  Check your policies and call us for assistance if you would like support in further developing your strategy!
Team building
 
 
Encouraging Teamwork in Your Organization 
 

Teams are created to gain the effectiveness of synergy. Synergy demonstrates that the total is greater than the sum of its parts. For example, suppose that three people work autonomously and generate one unit of production each. If they worked as a team they may produce four, five, or possibly six units. The synergy of an effective team has a return on investment that may be realized when everyone is performing well collectively.
 

The benefits to encouraging and supporting teams
Employees want to be included in decision-making processes that will impact their work. They want the opportunity to discuss and understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. Teams provide this opportunity along with the following benefits to organizations:
 
  • Process Improvement. Teams promote brainstorming ideas that will provide and support improvements in the way an organization accomplishes tasks.
  • Improved Morale. As teams are created, employees relate to one antoher and form bonds that may result in greater cohesiveness and stronger employee engagement.
  • Quality Improvement. More solutions with greater outcomes. When people present thier unique talents and ideas to a team, often, better results will be created.
  • Clear expectations. Valuable time is wasted when expectations aren't clear. By having everyone attend meetings together, less time is wasted on uncertainty and needless work. 

The power of teams can be a strategic advantage that will benefit employees, organizations, and customers. The benefits of teams can outweigh the costs as people develop their skills, pool resources, have fun and, most significantly, get things done.

 

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Regards,
 Rich
Rich Lehr, President
RGL Consultants