'Disrespectful': JPMorgan CEO unhappy with employees using phones
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called out workplace "phubbing" recently, bringing the topic of phone bans out of classrooms and factory floors and into white collar workplaces.
In a recent Financial Times (FT) analysis, Dimon complained about distracted employees in meetings “getting notifications and personal texts or who are reading emails,” calling it a “disrespectful” waste of time that "has to stop".
Meanwhile, some employers are turning to restrictive measures to control phone use in the form of lockers or pouches that deny workers physical access, FT outlined – not only for distraction purposes but for privacy and security concerns. It referenced a German study on workplace phone bans published in 2023, that found that a simple request to limit phone use while working can be effective in increasing productivity.
Economist Adrian Chadi, who conducted the original field experiment with co-authors Mario Mechtel and Vanessa Mertins in 2015, describes the journey the research took from a controversial research paper that drew negative media attention to the current interest as cellphone use in workplaces falls under the microscope.
“We found some evidence that these bans could reduce distraction, so people focus more on their tasks,” Chadi says, which the team thought was a “kind of success story,” but was received largely as a threat to worker autonomy when it first emerged.
“It's interesting to see that there are more and more discussions, also in companies, about this concern of distraction through phones,” Chadi says.
A simple test with surprising results
Chadi's research did not test confiscation or strict enforcement of a phone ban. Instead, it examined what happens when employers simply request that employees not use their smartphones during work hours, says the associate professor at the University of Southampton in the U.K.
They took advantage of a nationwide telephone survey to conduct a field experiment randomly imposing phone bans – or not – on real employee groups through simple signage.
“We just basically gave a recommendation. We asked them to not use their smartphones,” Chadi says. “In fact, we had a simple sign on the wall that just said, ‘Please don’t use your smartphone for work hours.’”
Although the ban was not enforceable, there were still positive results, with the researchers observing “substantial effort increases from banning smartphones in the routine task of calling households, without negative implications linked to perceived employer distrust.”
‘Soft intervention’ instead of harsh workplace phone bans
It’s this “soft intervention” approach that Chadi says is key to imposing any sort of phone limits on employees.
In contrast, the debate around school bans in Canada is intensifying. Even after generally positive reports coming back about the classroom limits imposed in 2024, the Ontario government is now exploring an “outright ban” on cellphones anywhere on school property, not just in classrooms.
Predictably, there has been criticism of the hard-lined approach, with critics saying it ignores the reality that youth need to learn firsthand about technology and the risks it presents.
Plus, critics add, outright bans will only push youth to create “shadow” accounts. It’s exactly this point that transfers directly to workplaces and employees, Chadi says, reiterating that even adults will push back against policies that seem controlling without clear reason.
“Definitely the language matters, and so HR managers are well-advised … to approach it in a way that there is some understanding,” he says, adding that not only can unclear or too-strict messaging be misunderstood as a sign of distrust, but be seen as suggesting that workers aren’t performing well enough.
“This suggests that, potentially for many firm contexts where it's difficult to implement such a harsh intervention, this could be kind of a ‘middle-ground’ solution, if managers are concerned about distraction.”
