Technology: Friend or Foe in Workplace Relations?

In the never-ending quest for increased productivity in the workplace, more and more companies are employing increased technology to make workers able to communicate more effectively with each other. Email, cellphones, and Blackberrys are just a few examples of the many technological methods of communication available in the modern workplace. But are these “advances” causing a decline in old-fashioned social skills that are often necessary to move up the corporate ladder and broaden one’s network? Is it possible that our growing reliance on sterile text on a screen is costing us our basic communicative skills, such as body language, eye contact, and ability to deal with face-to-face interaction? Some companies say yes, and they’re putting a stop to it. In a recent news story, Jay Ellison, executive vice president of U.S. Cellular in Chicago, enacted a ban on email on Fridays. He said that, “Some [emails] are very valuable, and some of them are just an excuse not to communicate or to protect myself from something that’s going on…. We tend to use email as a kind of a tool to hide behind issues versus getting up and talking to people.” While his employees initially balked at the idea, they soon found that picking up the phone to deal with issues helped them to learn more about their coworkers (in one case, many of Ellison’s coworkers learned that a woman with a gender-neutral name was, in fact, a woman). But it’s not just employees that can get frustrated with technology. Customers, too, are feeling the aggravation with endless automated menus and voice mail and email messages that seemingly vanish into the great beyond (perhaps they’re colonizing with the lost socks from the dryer?). John Naisbitt, author of Mind Set! urges “any CEO whose company has a voice answering system to call his company and see whether he can get through to himself.” Who hasn’t vented about the twenty minutes it took to get through to “a warm body” while calling the credit card company? By the time you finally do speak to a person, you may be so angry (because chances are, there was a problem that prompted you to call in the first place) that you take it out on them, who in turn may take it out on his or her coworkers, and the negativity continues to spread. Do you feel that the growing dependence on email is costing workers their basic social skills? Do you tend to use email if you don’t want to see or hear the reaction of the recipient? Do you feel that technology is more of a hinderance than a convenience? We look forward to hearing your opinions!