Procedure E-Mail or Memo: Rules for Cell Phone Use in Sales Reps' Cars As one of the managers of Futura a hair care and skin products company. you are alarmed at a newspaper article you just saw A stockbroker for Smith Barney was making cold calls on his personal cell phone while driving. His car hit and killed a motorcyclist The brokerage firm was sued and accused of contributing to an accident by encouraging employees to use cell phones while driving To avoid the risk of paying huge damages awarded by an emotional jury. the brokerage I inn offered the victims family a 5500.000 settlement.

You begin to worry. knowing that your company has provided its 75 sales representatives with mobile phones to help them keep in touch with the home base while they are in the field At the next management meeting. other members agreed that you should draft a message detailing some mobile phone safety rules for your sales reps On the Web you learned that anyone with a cell phone should get to know its features. including speed dial. automatic memory] and redial Another suggestion involved using a hands-free device. Management members decided to purchase these for every sales rep and have the devices available within one month When positioning cell phones in their cars reps should make sure they are within easy reach Cell phones should be where reps can grab them without removing their eyes from the road It they get an incoming call at an inconvenient time they should let their voice mail pick up the call They should never talk. of course. during hazardous driving conditions, such as rain, sleet, snow, and ice.
Taking notes or looking up phone numbers is dangerous when driving. You want to warn sales reps not to get into dangerous situations by reading (such as an address book) or writing (such as taking notes) while driving The more you think about it the more you think that sales reps should not use their cell phones in moving cars They really should pull over But you know that would be hard to enforce.

Your Task. Individually or in teams DoT e-mail to Futura sales reps outlining company suggestions (or should they be rules?) for safe wireless phone use in cars You may wish to check the Web for additional safety ideas Try to suggest reader benefits in this message How is safety beneficial to the sales reps? The message is from you acting as operations manager