(MENAFN- Live Mint) It's common for employees to check their phones and other digital devices during office meetings, a habit that many have grown into, particularly after the shift to remote and hybrid working.

However, some chief executive officers believe they need to re-establish fundamental meeting etiquette.

This push often involves setting clear rules around device usage, as many leaders feel that divided attention is undermining the purpose and productivity of in-person gatherings.

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JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been particularly blunt about this, reported Fortune.

At Fortune's Most Powerful Women summit in October, Dimon declared that he expects complete attention from everybody in the room.

“If you have an iPad in front of me and it looks like you're reading your email or getting notifications, I tell you to close the damn thing,” Dimon told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell.

“It's disrespectful,” he added.

However, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna sees things a bit differently. He argued that it would be“weird” for a tech company to tell its employees not to use their technology-especially in larger meetings where devices can be a useful tool rather than a distraction.

The 62-year-old Krishna also suggested that smaller, more intimate meetings should be treated with greater attention.

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“I distinguish between one-to-10-person meetings and very large meetings. If it's a very large meeting, I'm sorry. It's not really a meeting. It's a communication vehicle. You're just informing people,” Krishna told CNN last week.

He added:“If it's a small meeting, I would really frown upon if somebody is sitting opposite my desk and lost in their phone, I would tell them, 'why don't you come back when you have time?'”

Distraction

Behaviour in the conference room is something Dimon has long lamented. In fact, in his annual letter to shareholders last spring, he mentioned the word“meetings” six times-urging employees to only schedule them when necessary and to make them count.

While Dimon hasn't drawn clear lines around meeting size like Krishna has, his frustration appears to extend well beyond small gatherings.

“I see people in meetings all the time who are getting notifications and personal texts or who are reading emails,” Dimon wrote.“This has to stop. It's disrespectful. It wastes time.”

With an increasing dependence on technology at the workplace, multitasking during a meeting has become easier than ever - especially when an AI assistant can generate a post-meeting summary and allow you to 'zone out'.

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