An e-mail comes in on your PDA
device during a meeting. Is it OK to
read it? To type out an answer?
Like cell phones, PDAs (personal digital
assistants) can be the bane of business
planners.
While cell phone etiquette has generally
been established during business meetings (cell phones generally get turned off
or put on “vibrate”), the verdict is still out
on PDA e-mail etiquette, according to a
survey developed by Robert Half Management Resources, the world’s premier
provider of senior-level accounting and
finance professionals on a project and
interim basis. The national poll included
responses from 150 senior executives —
including those from human resources,
finance and marketing departments —
with the nation’s 1,000 largest companies.
“While our survey found that it is common for those attending business meetings to look at and answer e-mails, not all
executives were certain that it is a good
practice,” says Chuck Cave, vice president
of Robert Half Management Resources in
Cleveland.
Smart Business spoke with Cave about
survey results and some tips on PDA etiquette during business meetings.
What did executives in your survey have to
say about PDA use during meetings?
The verdict is still out on whether or not
it is OK to check e-mail during business
meetings, although many executives are
doing it. The majority (86 percent) of senior executives say it’s common for professionals they work with to read and
respond to e-mail messages on their
mobile devices during meetings.
Still, 31 percent of respondents said it’s
‘never OK’ to check e-mail during meetings, 37 percent feel it’s acceptable to
respond to urgent messages, and another
23 percent said using portable e-mail
devices during a gathering is fine, as long
as it is done outside of the room.
What kind of signal does it send to meeting
participants if someone checks e-mail during
the meeting?
It can be difficult to know what is considered acceptable as new technologies
emerge. As with cell phones, it takes people a while to learn what is and is not
appropriate. If you are focused on other
tasks, you risk sending the message that
you do not find the meeting’s topics
important. Further, you could end up distracting other participants.
Because of technology, do companies expect
executives to be available around the clock?
According to an article in the December
2006 issue of the Harvard Business Review, 45 percent of high-earning managers in large multinational corporations
have jobs that demand more than 60
hours of work a week, large amounts of
travel, unpredictable work flows, round-the-clock availability and heavy responsibility. They believe that 10 percent of
these managers work more than 80 hours
a week.
Globalization has increased the need for
corporate officers to travel and communicate, compelling executives to be available outside normal working hours in
their time zone. Advances in communication technology have made the middle-ofthe-night international conference call or
e-mail both cheap and easy.
How should you handle an urgent e-mail during a meeting?
Alert your meeting host that you may
have to respond to an urgent e-mail on
your mobile device during the meeting. Be
as unobtrusive as possible. Quietly excuse
yourself from the meeting.
What is the best way to conduct a meeting so
that people will feel disinclined to use a
mobile device?
Preparation is key. Devote sufficient
time to keep the conversation on topic
and on schedule. Prepare an agenda to
keep the meeting on track. Start and end
the meeting on time. Resist the urge to
invite people who have little or nothing to
do with the topic. Encourage open discussion and watch how the group interacts.
Groups that will be meeting regularly
should be collaborating.
Also, if you’re running a meeting and
someone is disrupting the meeting by
responding to e-mail, you can discreetly
ask the meeting participant to either stop
e-mailing or leave the meeting, attend to
the issue and then return.
CHUCK CAVE is the vice president of Robert Half Management
Resources in Cleveland. Reach him at (216) 765-8367 or
[email protected].
