How to politely ask an employee to avoid *personal* texting during meetings?

Question

I have an employee at a mid-size IT startup who is texting during our Daily Standup meetings. It's just a text or two at a time, but it's obviously personal. They get emotionally aroused, tune out of the meeting, it's visible to others, and has been going on for 3 weeks without a miss.

I'm fine with people doing personal things at work, but want to avoid this during the few windows when we're supposed to engage each other as a team.

It's easy to ban phones in just this 10-minute meeting. In most, I'm fine with phone use. I want the delineation to be work use vs non-work use. To keep phones and laptops available for meeting-relevant work, but limit personal conversations to when one is alone.

What would be the softest, least embarrassing way to ask an employee to avoid personal (not all) texting during meetings?

The options I've considered include:

• Discussing group norms without singling anyone out. My concern is that it would be obvious who it's about.
• Mentioning this "casually". I'm worried that it might feel like I'm intruding into their personal life (I know their texting is an office romance, but don't want to bring it out).
• Asking them not to use the phone during meetings at all. My concern is that this feels rigid and is a use of direct power, which I try to avoid. It would also be singling them out.

I don't want to restrict cell phones as tools, only their use for entertainment, and only when it's important to be engaged in the work. We do check them in meetings for work reasons, like looking up the calendar.

I'm not the employee's line manager, which I'm still hiring, and don't work with them much. Still, as the ranking company officer that's actually in the office, it falls to me.

This is complicated by high power distance, patriarchal culture the employee grew up in. Even a single embarrassing conversation could damage their self-esteem that's been difficult to build up.

Answer 1

As a former Scrum Master, I would just do this privately. Doing it in public during a sprint review or something similar can a) be considered to be criticizing in public (especially when everyone knows who it is really about) while also b) being a very indirect way without any seriousness attached. It’s normal to expect someone to be focused at work, ESPECIALLY during a 10 minute meeting. Don’t be afraid to come across too harshly if you just take it private, because honestly it warrants some harshness (even though the soft approach is better to try first)

Answer 2

I'd go with this:

Mentioning this "casually". I'm worried that it might feel like I'm intruding into their personal life

Have a word with them privately and say that you need them to focus on the meeting and that means reading/sending personal texts can wait 10 minutes. This isn't unreasonable since personal matters excepting a genuine emergency can wait that 10 minutes. And any genuine emergency isn't going to be happening over and over at your stand up times.

That's not "intruding" into their personal life - it's having a perfectly appropriate discussion about their professional one

Answer 3

We used to have a problem with a guy who always put his phone on the table and looked at it, expecting it to ring. If it did he'd answer, and say "This is important" and leave the room. Great, our meeting is not important.

I suggested we ban phones in stand-ups, which we then did. No interruptions, and people are quicker to finish up and go.

We added an exception for people who were expecting e.g. the birth of a baby, they were allowed to bring phones if they excused themselves beforehand.

Answer 4

Slight frame challenge:

You are doing this person no favors in the career development process by continuing to allow this to slide. What they are doing is, quite simply, rude. While you may have patience and not want to hurt their feelings or de-empower them, many managers won't. I would speak to them in private and be direct. One gentle way to put this might be:

"Hey [name], I need to talk to you about something. I don't want you to get upset or worry about it, because this is completely off the record and just between me and you. You really need to not be texting during meetings. It's unprofessional and disrespectful to the other people in the meeting."

Answer 5

I'm going to take a different approach and ask why a team member is able to look at their phone and not be engaged with the stand-up if it is only 10 minutes. The things people are saying should be highly relevant to everyone at the stand-up and their planned work for the day. If they aren't, you may need to break up into smaller teams and have multiple stand-ups.

If someone isn't engaged with a meeting I am running, I ask them a question about the current conversation. A simple "What do you think?" is often all that's necessary to shift their focus to where it should be. If they do have an urgent personal matter, encourage them to go give it their full attention and not worry about the meeting. Stuff happens, and it’s just a daily stand-up. It’s better to have everyone there fully engaged than have everyone there. Do not just ignore team members that are ignoring the meeting.

The team could agree on a "phones in pockets or left on desks" rule that would let people stay available while reducing the temptation. There's simply no excuse to be looking at a phone during a standup. Put a calendar on the wall. Have your current set of issues up on a screen for people to refer to. Everyone should be looking at the same thing so the team can collaborate more effectively. It is a completely different dynamic if everyone is gathered around a piece of paper taped to the wall versus everyone looking at a document on their phone. It's worth the hassle to get people looking at each other and pointing to stuff. People leave the meeting more energized in my experience.

Answer 6

I'm going to assume, as you used "daily standup" that you do some sort of scrum-style thing. If so, a good time to bring this up is at a retrospective, or maybe you could go over your "team charter" or whatever you call the document that sets out expectations around meetings. The one which says when your standups are and how long etc.

Keep it general, obviously, but something like "during standups/other meetings we need to focus on the work in hand/be mentally present. If there's an emergency then obviously you can deal with it but please step out of the room" kind of thing.

Answer 7

Interrupt the meeting and draw attention to the phone use.

A: (starts typing on the phone while soneone else is talking)

Manager: (turning to A) Has something important come up? Should we interrupt and continue later?

A: (puts away the phone, slightly embarrassed) Uh, no, sorry, please continue.

Repeat as necessary. If it happens again, a moment of silence and a questioning look might suffice.

Answer 8

Are you their manager or in the line management structure?

If so, taking them casually to one side and asking them not to shouldn't be an issue. If they take offence then there is a bigger issue about workplace attitude that needs to be considered.

Answer 9

I'd say that you can inform the whole team to simply use more discretion with cell phones during meetings. This way, you don't single anyone out. Observe the employee you've mentioned for maybe a week, and see if the behavior persists. If it doesn't, you're good. If it does, pull the employee into a private meeting and discuss.

You don't want to drop the hammer on the team and ban cell phones:

• People with children or special-needs dependents need to respond to caregivers and school staff. These occurrences are sometimes urgent.
• There are other legitimate situations that may be made easier with quick responses (medical / legal concerns, building contractor, utilities).

If you do this in a hybrid work environment, people are going to opt to not come into the office if it inconveniences them. So, walk this "soft" policy slowly and maybe you can urge the one employee to not abuse the privilege.

Answer 10

It seems I'm more direct than most in this sort of situation. In my opinion the behavior is occurring in public so it's okay to address tactfully in public. I would say something like, "If that text can't wait until after standup, could you please take it outside?"

At any rate, I don't believe in setting blanket bans because exceptions are very personal, but it's okay to expect professional behavior. Try to give a heads up if you're expecting an urgent call, and excuse yourself and leave the room when you get one. And recognize the difference between important and urgent. Even some very important communications can wait 10 minutes.

Answer 11

While a policy revolving around the specific behavior may be the answer here, there is another way to look at this than that behavior. While most people understand what scrums are, they can be vastly different in practice.

I've been in scrums before where only one of the people even understand what I'm doing. I've been in scrums that dive deep down into technical implementations mid update. I've been in scrums where people are from different departments and don't understand everyone's update.

The things above can all lead to lack of engagement in the team during scrum which can cause similar issues in general. This behavior is one of many ways engagement can slip. Reflection upon what's happening in the scrum can help highlight areas that may need tweaks. Here are some questions that can be reflected on how:

• Does everyone in the scrum understand the updates?
• Is time spent between projects/people proportional?
• Are things slipping into scrum that should be followed up at a later time?
• Are the updates given at scrum relevant to the people at the scrum?

These may seem like simple things, but things drift with time and questions like this can gauge if things need to be adjusted.

Answer 12

Is the meeting really 10 minutes or is it running longer? Sounds like people say their bit and other coworker's reports are not important so the first ones tune out.

Do you need this meeting at all? Is it a glorified series of reports to the manager instead of a group keeping all its members up to date?

Answer 13

On the whole, you sound extraordinarily indulgent.

When I began reading the question, I imagined a long, droning meeting that was causing people to tune out... then I got to the bit where it says the meeting is just 10 minutes long!

It's reasonable to expect people to concentrate for that length of time.

And it's a daily standup, so I assume the timing is consistent and there wouldn't usually be a need to answer scheduled incoming calls or messages immediately - even if they were work-related.

Whether to tackle the issue in public or private is a judgment for you, perhaps depending on the sensitivity and character of the person who isn't concentrating.

I'd be inclined to use school-room approaches: when noticing that distraction has started, ask rhetorically "is there something you'd like to share with us?".

Your manner can be playful and needn't be grave - but it alerts people, reminds them that their concentration has visibly wandered, and prompts them to consider whether whatever else they are concentrating on is a justifiable priority.