‘We take notes, we have eye contact’: How phone bans at work affect meetings and culture

About ten years ago, employees at Michigan-based mortgage lender United Wholesale Mortgage started to notice a huge increase in the use of connected devices at work. “From cellphones, all of a sudden, you have i Pads, and then smartwatches,” says UWM’s Chief People Officer, Laura Lawson, who’s been at the company for 15 years. “It can become out of control.” At the same time, the company began “questioning emails,” Lawson adds. Long threads felt unproductive, so it was imperative to figure out a way to make meetings more efficient. Then, the company’s CEO, Matt Ishbia, made a big decision: He banned cellphones from company meetings. UWM’s held onto the policy ever since. “We take notes, we have eye contact,” says Lawson. “We are fully engaged…Because of this, we have more efficient meetings, more takeaways. It really creates an accountability for us to be fully in the moment.” With recent news about CEOs at JP Morgan and Airbnb growing frustrated about their employees’ cellphone use in meetings, Fast Company looked into various organizations’ cellphone policies, in offices and in remote working environments. Turns out, not many have official policies like UWM—most rely on loose cultural norms, and many grapple with the multi-faceted role the phone’s taken on today. “Someone taking notes or pulling up a relevant resource looks identical to someone scrolling,” says Ceci Hajredinaj, CEO and Growth Strategist at consultancy Thryve x Design. Both a distraction and a useful (even necessary, or required) tool, phones can be exceptionally difficult to police in meetings and the workplace at large. Leaders must walk a tightrope between getting employees to focus at work without limiting their resources. A strong cultural dependency on phones makes it even harder to enforce rules at work—and to disengage from the devices that command hours of our waking day. Varied expectations and a policy patchwork UWM’s phone ban extends beyond meetings. The company has also established des