BOUND by a creed and spurred by a mandate for effective service delivery, employees of organisations all around the world make promises to satisfy customers. This is the import of mission statements and vision of every establishment—to provide services in the most efficient ways and thereby ensure maximum customers' satisfaction. To fulfill the words of this creed are the employees, who double as the ambassadors of the organisation. Therefore, employee performance has been seen as the oil of progress for organisations. I

n order to assist in the effective performance of their duties, a host of infrastructure and telecommunication technology equipment are put in place in workplaces. Most of these equipment that were meant to hasten employees' work have however become an albatross and a cog in the wheel of service delivery. Not only the ICT equipment but also countless other self-satisfying machinations of employees have become staunch competitors with employers' time. The attention which ought to be an exclusive reserve of the customers and employers have suddenly become submerged in the midst of a heated competition, employers no longer have the passionate commitment of their employees.

The commitment has been ceded to a new found love- personal satisfaction and sundry pleasures! These employees, while at work have created a disneyland, an haven of comfort where they find solace in facebook, yahoo messanger chat, personal calls on mobile phones or at worst on company's phones, soccer matches on cable, African Magic and Nigezie showing on DSTV and HITV among others. Most employees now abandon their work with utter neglect and run to catch up with the latest football gist, fashion trends and all the sorts. Not wanting to miss the latest episode of a play, or the call from their loved ones, employees sentence customers to minutes of fruitless waiting.

The truism about customers being always right has been proven false by current trends in workplaces, as customers are daily 'left,' left to stand unattended to, left to fear his or her ordeal in his or her own workplace due to waste of time, left to regret doing business with the company, whose top echelon may have no idea what the employees are making customers go through. It is these customers who pay the employers to stay in business,with the hope of getting services delivered effectively and to time.

This hope is daily being sacrificed on the slabs of various self-seeking acts of employees and indulgences that threaten to send employers out of business. Employees in various organisations engage in gists and idle talks while customers and other duties are waiting to be attended to. They catch up on issues, chat away customers' precious time, time which according to lawyers is billable. A case was reported of a Nigerian Nurse, Calista Ukaegbu, who worked for the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich, United Kingdom, she was suspended for chatting with a friend while carrying out tests on a patient. She apparently used hand gestures to direct the patient because she was so engrossed in her conversation, a conversation which lasted six minutes.

The reaction of  the authority of the hospital could be said to be an appropriate measure,  Sunday Tribune gathered that the latest and hottest competitor with employers of youths and young adults is Facebook. When Facebook stares workers in the face, not even the customers can make them blink. Most employees in organisations spend their employers' time and money to reveal what is on their mind on Facebook rather than face what is on their hand or in their front- their jobs and customers.

Sunday Tribune sought the opinion of a lawyer on whether a customer whose time is wasted can seek redress for his wasted time. According to her, "there is no precedence for such, you can prosecute only for misrepresented facts in the course of services rendered to you but not for the length of time taken to deliver such services." Despite the fact that legal options are not yet available in the nation’s legislation on negligence of customers for frivolous issues, there was a case of a customer who went to a NEPA office and was not attended to on time. The aggrieved customer reported these employees to the higher authority and they were appropriately sanctioned while the company also ensured strict sanctions to avoid a recurrence of such acts.

Another workplace menace that has been eating deep into employers' time courtesy of employees include food items, personal businesses and other commitments. It was reported that many civil servants take vegetables and melons to school, preparing these when they are supposed to be working. Some even go to the point of peddling and hawking their small scale businesses among fellow workers.

Daily, employers are cheated, customers are delayed and subsequently lost due to the actions and inactions of employees. Yet, employees, rather than wake up to the call for better services delivery, choose to heed the call of personal pleasures.

Right now, employers and these employees' peccadilloes are locked in a fierce battle of supremacy, a battle which the former is gradually losing. As it has been said, when two elephants fight, the grass would always suffer, at the receiving end of the brunt of this needless battle are customers and effective services.

One only wonders why technology that is meant to aid workers in the discharge of their duties now hinder them. Would it be right to query the need for cables and internet connection in workplaces, as these have proven the worst enemies of progress which they were meant to engender. If one views issues from the imminent damage which the actions of employees do to the organisations, the customers and the country at large, one can only criticise the existence of technology.

In a related development, the Bauchi State government has made a move to ban the use of mobile phones by students of secondary schools during school hours. This it said was in a bid to reduce the students' lack of attention to academics and the attendant mass failures in examination. What this reveals is the misuse to which many people have begun to put Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The battle between employers' time and ICT equipment cum employees' misuse rages on, immediate action would be required to stem the tides of the battle, else, everyone would eventually become a victim.

Perhaps in a bid to arrest the ugly situation, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation issued a circular banning the use of televisions in public offices. The circular only exempted reception areas and public affairs departments of such public offices. In a telephone chat with Mr. Tokunbo Peters, the Public Relations Manager of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Ibadan zone, he affirmed the said circular which emanated from the SGF's office. But according to him, televisions are very important to the progress of organisations, especially the public relations department who need it to monitor news and feel the pulse of the society.