Personal Phone Calls

Lexus · March 2004

I am an HR Director at a bank with 140 employees and 12 locations. We asked our receptionist to log all incoming calls for a one week period at our corporate location (45 employees). The results showed that 13% of the calls were from family or friends. We understand that in todays workplace there needs to be a balance between personal and business. My question is whether 13% is low, high, or about average for a professional business.

deniseE · March 2004

I think that is a fairly low number... I wouldn't be surprised if some of our employees average well over 50%.

If the work product is good, I'd leave it alone.

Parabeagle · March 2004

Our policies restrict personal calls to breaks and lunch. So I would be less concerned about the percentage as I would be about when the calls were logged. From my perspective, if the 13% occurred during permissible times I wouldn't be concerned about it.

lnelson · March 2004

The percentage sounds about average but I would be more concerned about the length of time that was spent on those type of calls and if it affected their production.

Lisa

Whatever · March 2004

The percentage is a phony figure. First, it is only incoming calls, not outgoing. Second, it doesn't tell you how long the person is on the phone. Third, it doesn't tell when the person was on the phone. Finally, it doesn't give you the distribution of how many calls each person got (it is possible, but not likely, that 90% of the calls could be to one person).
Having said that, it would probably be useful to know why you wanted this information.

HRQ · March 2004

I have no idea what would be a realistic percentage of personal calls for our staff.

I assume you are trying to determine if restricting incoming personal calls more than you already do would be reasonable. Maybe this will help...?

We do not allow employees to accept phone calls except in an emergency. Messages will be taken and the employee may return the call during a break.

All phone calls come in through one number - calls will not be transferred to classrooms. In emergencies, the employee will be called up front to take the call. (Employees can use a private area if necessary)

Cell phones are to be turned off when the employee arrives at work, although the employee may keep their phone in their purse/jacket/whatever. We don't check for this, we trust the employees to turn off their phones. If we find they are using their phones while working, disciplinary action results. xx(

The "messages only" rule works well, since the classrooms do not have direct-dial phones. We sometimes have to argue the definition of "emergency", however.

Dutch2 · March 2004

We too are a bank of about the same size. We instruct our ee's that our phones are for business use. However, I would guess our personal call rate to be 'bout the same as yours if not higher. We concentrate more on the amount of time spent on personal calls rather than the number received. We have several ee's with latch-key kids who have instructions to call mom or dad the minute they arrive safely home from school and this we do not want to stop. Basically we do not bring up the issue unless we suspect someone is taking advantage of our good nature. We did have to zero in a couple of ee's some time back that had passed out our 800 number to their friends and relatives all over the country.... "Hey, call me at work on the 800 number it is a free call!" WRONG....!
Can you hear me now?
Dutch2

bgreene · March 2004

I have tracked this with our company and the percentage has been more closer to the 25 - 30 percentile range. Sounds like your employees are doing a fairly good job on keeping calls to a minimum.

Lexus · March 2004

Thank you for your replies. Very helpful.

Personal Phone Calls

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