personal phone calls

HR IN AL

We are having problems with employees in a manufacturing environment getting too many personal phone calls which we do not take unless it is an emergency and then when we tell them that ,it is suddenly an emergency. Any one know legally what we can do about this or any suggestions for how you handle manufacturing employees getting calls?

Down_the_Middle

Similar to catching minnows in a shark net.......
For what it may be worth, in my industry (healthcare) we screen those calls that come into our main call center and refuse to transfer them unless they're an emergency. Calls that sneak by or sometimes are dialed directly become the respon of the dep't mgr to monitor productivity. It's an ugly task and occasionally we find employees being disciplined for excessive use of phone for non business reasons, but it's a constant challenge. Short of formal screening devices and auto messaging, it's hard to eliminate. Not to mention the use of cell phones and text messaging.....

mwild31

I'm not sure why you are asking about a "legal" remedy, but I'll answer anyway. It's your company - if you don't want personal phone calls clogging up your phone lines, then you don't have to allow it. Let your employees know what the policy is regarding personal phone cals & then enforce it through discipline when people step outside of the policy.

Paul in Cannon Beach

How are these phone calls reaching your employees? By cell phones or do you have phones in the facility where they can be called?

It sounds like you have a reasonable policy "no personal calls unless its an emergency" but your employees are defining emergency differently than you are.

Limiting access to the phones or banning cell phones may be your best option. You could ensure that true emergency calls can get to employees by routing them through designated floor supervisors or office staff.

E Wart

We are manufacturing also. This comes up about 3 times a year. The receptionist is "supposed" to take a message and they are delivered or put with their time card periodcially throughout the day. Employees have a company phone they can use during breaks or at meal times.
We have requested that employees turn off cell phones (or don't answer them) unless on break or meal times. (This worries me more than getting called to a phone. Could prove dangerous is working with equipment while talking on phone.)
However, the line is fuzzy as to what is an "emergency". Is a child calling in to let them know they are home from school each day an emergency?
If you have phones where calls have to come through before going to plant employees, just take a message.

E Wart

Paul in Cannon Beach

With cell phones so prevalent now, I wonder if anyone has gone so far as to define what an "emergency" call is.

HRanna

When we receive such a call, we require the caller to identify themselves and explain the nature of the emergency. We explain that, while we are very willing to get someone in case of an emergency, we want to be able to explain what the call is about when we go get the person off the production line so we don't unnecessarily scare them. If it is an emergency ("the school is calling and your son has hurt himself") everyone appreciates our efforts to get them right away.

TRUE STORY: I got a call from an employee's daughter, who insisted it was an emergency. I made her tell me what was wrong and she went on a five minute tirade about how she was going to be late for school, and if we didn't want her calling her mother at work we should tell her mother to do the laundry so she would have clean clothes to wear (insert many swear words liberally throughout). I told her I would not pass on the message, and because of her language and name calling she was not to call again.

I went to the mother's supervisor to have him tell her to see me (I was serious about the daughter not being allowed to call us any more), and he laughingly told me the daughter worked for us! Apparently she was 18 years old and working on our third shift while she finished high school. And yes, that was her last day of employment with us!