Yes - it’s your relaxed policies that are killing you. You’ll always get the “I can be on my phone all day” types because of this. It would be worth digging into your data to make this position as efficient as possible. Is it really a full time job? Can they produce more if/when focused? Is there not enough demand? Lots of unanswered questions I’d want to get to the bottom of.

You can have your cake eat it too… that specific employee has a brand new cellphone policy starting at your next 1:1 I think. No phone until task completed. Act like a child get treated like a child. If they don’t quit or your problem isn’t instantly resolved, I dunno what, but I’d start there. As others have said transitioning into a new job is stressful, whether or not the work itself is, just due to all the surrounding logistics that complicate life when people are generally seeking employment. Be direct and open and honest with them, your policies sound like a dream to me if I were in those shoes because I need music to multitask. No one under the age of 40 feels complete without their phones in their pocket, whatever that says about our society 😂, they’ll be done first for the following week every day and then you can go back to normal. Employee will learn the lesson and appreciate the opportunity to grow when they look back on it, or they won’t and they’ll go waste somebody else’s time and money.

It may your policies or more likely you simply hired the wrong candidate. You can keep the music/cell policies and cultivate a culture of “get results and this can be an easy job” or you can effectively punish good staff because you hired shit staff. Other commenters have suggested basically supervising them more and this that or the other thing. Just hire the right people and they will get their shit done and appreciate the respect you give them.

The only question that needs asking is: "have you adequately trained and supported this person. If the answer is yes, fire them now. Save yourself time and headaches and start hiring their replacement. If the answer is no, genuinely no, then take the time and make sure they are trained and supported. Then ask yourself that same question again.

How many times I have heard a business owner tell me how they should have fired somebody sooner but they wanted to wait and see. Yeah, 9 times out of 10, in my industry, they wait and get to see one of their commercial trucks flatten another driver out on the road. Like seriously not kidding. And why did they wait? Well employee X just had a kid or employee Y is new or employee Z is good friends with someone I know.

Fuck yeah you should. Are you kidding? You’re not paying them to doom scroll and bullshit with friends. The policy should be emergency calls only, and emergency really means emergency, not scheduling drinks with friends.