‘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 iPads, 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...