Employee’s productivity in the age of smartphones: The Role of Leadership
Project requirement in
“Leadership and change”
Sulaiman AlRajhi School of Business
2021
Dr.Wan Khairuzzaman Wan Ismail,
PhD Professor
Contents
Leadership role in ACHIEVING Positive aspects of smartphones on employee’s productivity. 3
Negative aspects of smartphones on employee’s productivity. 5
The impact of smartphones on employees’ work-life balance. 7
Leaders Commitment on Smartphone adoption for promoting employees productivity. 10
Leaders success in ensuring organisation embrace of identified organisation change. 11
Introduction
Different leadership scholars have been attempting to monitor digitalization processes’ implications due to the various positive implications associated with Smartphones usage in the modern business environment. For example, a report in Cortellazzo et al. (2019) indicates that leadership roles in smartphone use in an organisation include leading successful use of the devices through digitalization processes and inspiring the employees to embrace change often viewed as a threat to the existing status quo. For example, in my current organisation, in the HR department, we have e-leaders. These have been profiled as leaders who are able to constantly interact with technology either for social influence, handling the employee’s attitudes, feelings, thinking, behaviours and performances.
From a general point of view, a report published by Li and Lin (2019) had noted that increased use of smartphones in the modern work environment had improved the economy (75%), quality of life (67%), and society (64%). Recently in my organisation, the leadership has been insisting on strengthening relations with stakeholders and improving information sharing. My current organisation has succeeded in adapting to relevant change, which occurs daily through the integration of smartphone applications in workplaces.
Based on the background information, it is evident that leadership has a critical responsibility to play in ensuring the positive and negative implications of smartphone use in modern organisations. This is specifically evaluated in the areas of employee productivity and employees’ work-life balance.
Leadership role in achieving positive aspects of smartphones on employees productivity
The role of leadership in contributing to the achievement of positive aspects of smartphone use is measured from the basis of their productivity. In particular, organisational leadership successfully manages to overcome challenges encountered to improve productivity by using smartphones. This is supported in Pitichat (2013) research that had highlighted that the use of smartphones in the workplace could be valuable in three main dimensions. These are promoting autonomy, strengthening relations with peers and superiors, and improving knowledge-sharing.
In my organisation, the organisation leadership in different departments was tasked with evaluating how smartphones were being used to harness organizational productivity. To achieve this, the leadership carried out a survey to assess how smartphones influence the employees’ success in their job functions. The findings are as illustrated in figure 1;
Figure 1: Leadership evaluation of Smartphones usage and productivity
As it was evidenced in my organisation survey, it can be noted that at 40%, smartphones represent a significant hindrance towards the employees achieving high-level productivity. Additionally, my organization’s research also highlighted that the employees could appropriately use smartphones from a broad range of nonwork-related activities. To ensure that the smartphone usage helped the employees achieve their productivity, the leadership in the organisation took initiatives for appropriate training, which is inclusive of one-on-one interaction and coaching the employees. Also, leaders ensured they came up with relevant policies for encouraging high-level productivity. A case example is where I am a leader in my department, and we had been required to ensure that we do not disturb anyone who uses headphones, holding meetings in specific rooms far from where people work. I have confirmed that I have set quiet rooms for my department employees to go when they need to receive a distraction-free environment.
When it comes to employee productivity. It’s not about squeezing our employees to achieve organization goals; it’s about empowering them by giving them the tools to accomplish their tasks in the most efficient manner. This is supported by Smarp (2020) report, which highlighted the necessity for leaders to ensure that they establish new approaches to guaranteeing their employees’ motivation and improving their productivity. This is supported by a recent report in my organisation by leaders to identify the different employees’ productivity prohibitors and challenges. This is as shown in figure 2;
Figure 2: Leaders roles in ensuring employees productivity hindrances and challenges
As shown in figure 2 findings, it is evident that the leaders and managers, and internal communications professionals play a critical role in ensuring employees’ connection and engagement are harnessed. For instance, in my organisation, in current COVID-19 pandemic, the organisation leadership has ensured that they are offered a remote working environment to ensure employees’ productivity and business success are attained.
For example, in my organisation, in the current COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, this has contributed to increased use of smartphones in task tracking and video meetings.
Negative Aspects of Smartphones on Employees productivity
In Oman, AlZwamri and Hussain (2017) case study report had evidenced a situation where GDept, a government organisation affiliated with His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, evaluated leaders’ roles in evaluating smartphone usage on employees productivity. The leaders in this department had ensured that using smartphones at work contributes to addiction and obsession, lowering work productivity. This is on top of the distraction of the employees from information and others in meetings.
In the context of my current organisation, it is evident that as technology continues to advance and particularly the use of smartphones increase, there are critical areas that instrumental in productivity and performance over time. These include the areas of networking and making connections, communication, message interpretation, and distraction in the workplace. In my current organisation, the performance in the last 5 years can be as shown in figure 3;
Figure 3: Productivity/performance changes over time
Leaders at the top of an organization’s hierarchical structure are mandated in guaranteeing information flow in the organisation. As shown in figure 3, the leaders would be required to develop sustainable communication networks for a person-to-person relations where information flows in an organisation are promoted. This is an indicator that leaders are mandated to manage communication flow, messages misinterpretation, and workplace distraction.
It can be summarised that as the best leadership in an organisation, it is essential to ensure any negative effects of smartphones are mitigated. Expressly, Gowthami and Kumar (2016) report findings had noted leaders must solve the issues with the workload, blurring of work/life boundaries, interference with employees leisure time, and best practice of the employee’s practices. A case example is in my organisation where the leaders have put immense efforts in promoting the expectancies of existence, and prompt response to the superiors in ensuring the employees assumes a feeling of high-level obligation for direct responses to their superiors and ensuring the employees are assuming responsibility of prompt and direct responses.
The Impact of Smartphones on Employees Work-Life balance Effective leaders are an inspiration of people working around them to push themselves to greatness. This is a view evidenced in Haar et al. (2017) that leaders must act as an……
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