Creative Maze

Aplet, 32 along with a former rock musician, rarely separates himself from his iPod, and that includes while he’s at work. When he’s not enjoying his downloaded music, from Bob Marley to the White Stripes, he listens to podcasts about Web design. Recently he plugged his iPod into the office’s audio system and blared holiday music, much to the delight of his fellow staffers.

“My iPod’s a lifesaver,” says Aplet. “If I’m coding a Internet site and I have to be focused and not distracted by conversations, I’ll put on a headset and tune out. Then I’ll just pound away on the keyboard.”

Tuning Out to Get Cranking

Office drones everywhere have been performing the same thing for years, and their ranks seem to be growing.A recent survey by Spherion, a recruiting and staffing business, discovered that nearly a third of U.S. workers now listen to music on their iPods or similar devices although on the job. About 80 percent of those workers said the devices enhance their job satisfaction and productivity.

“I am in favor of any technologies that may be employed for entertainment while searching exactly like work to the casual observer,” jokes “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams in an e-mail interview. “And any entertainment you are able to discover throughout a business meeting is properly worth the risk of being detected.”

Nevertheless, what do bosses and colleagues think about the iPod invasion? That is where issues can get complicated.

Closing Doors

Is listening to music at work truly a boost to productivity, they wonder, or is it a distraction?

Does plugging into an iPod isolate listeners from their coworkers, shutting down natural communication and driving wedges between younger employees and their less-technologically savvy colleagues? Will an employee who is wrapped up in a Jordin Sparks song hear her telephone, or a fire alarm?

What about security problems? Is it possible for a disgruntled worker to download sensitive corporate details as easily as he can a song from iTunes?

Some businesses, typically smaller, tech-oriented firms, are fine with their employees firing up iPods and MP3 players on the job. A couple of, such as international firms like National Semiconductor and Capital One Monetary, have even purchased them in bulk for employees who can use them to listen to training sessions as well as other business communications at their desks, while traveling or even at house.

You’ve Got to Be Careful

Nevertheless, not all businesses are excited about the invasion of the iPod folks.

Asked about iPods at Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) in Folsom, Calif., company spokesperson Teri Munger pauses. “I have in no way seen anybody with an iPod within the workplace,” a minimum of in her creating, she says. The tiny players are not as innocuous as they look, some organizations insist, and raise some severe workplace questions.

“They’re great devices,” says Barbara Pachter, an office-etiquette and communications specialist in New Jersey. “With all of these kinds of technologies, though, it’s about how you use them inside your individual work space. You’ve got to be careful.”

The Spherion survey, conducted by Harris Interactive (Nasdaq: HPOL), found that younger workers are most likely to listen to music on their iPods while working. Almost half of adults ages 25 to 29 say they do so, compared with 22 percent of workers ages 50 to 64.

Those iPods, MP3 players as well as the like appear to be most generally employed among workers with “more monotonous jobs,” like filing and photocopying, and solitary jobs that require little interaction with colleagues or the public, says Brett Wiatre, Spherion’s Western region director of operations.

“In that kind of niche scenario, the music appears to maintain folks motivated and moving,” Wiatre says. Not All Workplaces Right for iPod

Daniel Robin, a workplace consultant in Santa Cruz, Calif., agrees that the devices have their place at some work sites.

Nonetheless, at others? Not so much.

“It seems fine if an individual is flying solo, like an information-technology technician who spends lots of time in transit to user internet sites,” Robin says. However, they’re “safety no-nos,” he says, in other instances.

“What in the event you can’t hear a forklift approaching?” Robin asks.

Or a colleague complaining?

The most wonderful and irritating factor about iPods within the office, says Pachter, is their capacity to cut workers off from the actual world.

“The ‘pro’ part of it is that their music doesn’t really bother other people, and it may help some people focus,” says Pachter, coauthor of the book New Rules@Work ($13.95, Prentice Hall, 272 pages).

“The downside is that people get so caught up in what they’re listening to that they do not hear others talking to them. When their headsets are on, it’s impossible to tell if they’re listening to you, or listening to their music. It drives me crazy!” iPod iSolation

“Dilbert” creator Adams, who has poked enjoyable at the phenomenon in his wildly well-liked comic strip about life within the work cubicle, says he doubts that anybody “is much more productive with distractions than without.”

“Still, anything that makes your coworkers less likely to talk to you has to be a great thing,” he jokes.

Dale Carnegie Training takes the matter a bit more seriously. The business advises caution when utilizing iPods at work.

“Even if your office sanctions iPod use, first contemplate your specific position and objectives,” Dale Carnegie’s Internet website reads. “Are you new and trying to form great working relationships?

“The iPod may possibly isolate you and discourage interaction with other people.”

Setting Policies

At Intel, the decision about whether utilizing iPods is proper is up to individual managers, says Munger. Usually, it’s acceptable if “work just isn’t impacted, employees are acting in a secure manner and their cube mates are not becoming distracted,” she says.

Wiatre of Spherion says some companies are setting policies about when and how iPods could be used on the job, just as they have placed restrictions on the use of cell phones as well as other personal technological devices.

“Some of our clients ban them,” he says. “Others are setting policies specific to the job as well as the work environment. We encourage employers to set established, consistent standards, to ensure that you will find no misunderstandings.”

Folsom startup SynapSense has no such policies. Most of its 40 employees, who hail from such far-flung places as South Africa, India and Barbados, embrace iPods at work, says spokesperson Patricia Nealon.

“We have a really diverse set of individuals, and they listen to all kinds of distinct music,” she says. “In a cubicle environment where folks retain their own space and need to focus on what’s right in front of them, it works out great.”

For software program developers or code writers, anyway. Nealon herself leaves her iPod at residence. “I’m a marketing and advertising individual, and I love interacting with people around me,” she says. “I only use my iPod when I work out.”

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