For the past several years, I have counseled employers, educators, and others, not to play Whack-A-Mole with their employees’ smart phones. Whack-A-Mole is the carnival game where you drop your fifty cents into the slot, grab the rubber mallet, and whack the plastic moles that pop their heads out of the board. Trying to get young people, or anyone for that matter, to turn off mobile devices is, like Whack-A-Mole, a fruitless effort. But some employers are still trying to enforce cell phone prohibitions.
This week, I spent some time with about twenty Millennials who work for a Fortune 500 firm in the New York area. Every single one of them was carrying two smart phones. Why? Because the firm’s leadership has blocked texting on its company issued devices. Hmmm . . .