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Productivity – reduced or improved by tech?

June 23, 2016

How does modern mobile technology affect productivity levels in the work environment? Here is a question many online materials have strove to answer, in both positive and negative ways.

While some claim that mobile technology is bound to distract employees from their daily tasks, others support the idea that personal portable technology does not affect productivity levels more than daydreaming or office conversations.

How are personal devices similar to other distractions?

Modern technology is marketed to enterprises as a mean of freeing people’s schedule for more productive uses of their time. A nice tagline, yet its materialization gets obstructed by:

  • The extra time requested for managing various applications, device settings and unpredictable layers of rules and limitations from which the employees either escape or develop new habits;
  • The addictive character of modern technology that often consumes more time than expected for seemingly minor tasks;
  • The control-less environment supplied by personal (and even company) tech during work hours that determines a fuzzy no man’s land: who has the ultimate rights over the data thus handled, what is the precise work/personal boundary and who should enforce it?
  • The unproductive effect of the continuous mix between decompressing moments and busy moments, which determines a permanent pressure on the individuals; although scheduling recharge moments depends on each one of us individually, some tend to cope harder with the tech havoc than others and ultimately a team may be affected in its entirety;

Of course, before technology, working environments featured a different set of habits, from gossip or water cooler conversations to people staring in thin air when they were too tired.

Somehow the time “lost” on various unfocused activities keeps its constant value over time, since there are various psychological proofs on how much an individual can keep his or her attention focused while still being productive. Various optimal formulas include the previously mentioned 52 minutes-then break method, the Pomodoro technique (25 minutes of focus, then 5 minutes break) or breaking the working time in 90 minutes windows, separated by a 20-minute break.

In other words, digital devices at work just fill in the approximately same amount of wasted time a previous generation of employers would have spent going to the bathroom, starring out the window or making small talk around the office. The similarity resides in the time spent with activities not related to the work itself, which is necessary for the mind to relax and be able to resume its intellectual or combined (physical and intellectual) main working activity.

How are personal devices different from other distractions?

As an employer, remember that there are no bulk-built individuals; although a manager might want to institute a certain work culture, as long as this does not take into consideration various human typologies, it might fit some, while completely acting against others. Your HR department could help employees know themselves better and find the productivity formulas that fit them best. Since we are considering a common work environment, try and include in the general equation the fact that your employees will synchronize some of their schedule points in order to socialize, otherwise  they risk of not being able to pay attention to their tasks thoroughly.

Technology may seem to compensate for live socializing – yet it is just a surrogate. A digital conversation will probably be replayed all over again face-to-face, so it makes no point in marking as “done” your employees’ daily socializing just because you noticed they text each other or communicate in any other intermediate manner.

Where the un-technologized workforce used the off-work time to unwind (with offline activities), the current generation may engage in digital activities that prove tiring for their eyes and minds. The effect of the off micro-moments may differ radically from one situation to the other. A real-life “off” moment has the potential to relax and energize, while an online “off” moment holds the potential for more anxiety and tiredness – depending on its content.

Sure, there are also specially designed applications that help people recharge their batteries in no time, or humorous materials that separate the daily tasks and transform one long and tedious day into macro moments with renewable energy – but the “off” time spent connected to technology is tiring by default since it solicits both the eyesight and the focusing abilities even more.

Check here some figures on tech distractions at work.

Workplace tech productivity, a few facts

  • The idea of increased productivity based on technology and/or connectivity sprung from tech marketers;
  • Although a lot of work-related tasks transitioned to devices and applications, thus saving time for employees, so did the “junk” discussions, the miscommunication issues and the counter-efficiency factors;
  • Technology is only partially controllable, unless the enterprise implements and follows through a strict cyber-security policy; even then, new and creative workarounds may appear, eluding the implemented rules;
  • However efficient companies may view their employees, true efficiency takes into consideration the real-life facts and the studies that include such facts; do not mistake figures and ideals for live situations; also be aware of posers: people that strive to prove themselves at no matter what cost and hide the reality, denying that they are overwhelmed, tires, unfocused or prone to negligence – these are traps that will sooner or later turn into pitfalls that may reflect on the teamwork;
  • A new wave of work tech disruptions is set to emerge once work wearables will gain traction in enterprises;
  • Improving employee productivity comes with its own rules that further adapt to each working environment; in order to have a smooth fit, measure the existing situation, communicate with your employees on the issues discovered, establish the ground rules and re-educate where needed, guiding the entire process by the idea that better work habits benefit employees and companies as well;
  • Counter-attacking tech-related unproductive work habits with tech tools can be an option, but be aware that you’re fighting fire with fire and technology is continuously developing turning today’s applications into tomorrow’s obsolete software – it may prove costly and slippery to base your measures only on censoring apps;
  • Sometimes the more organizations chase productivity, the more productivity becomes a mirage; meetings destined to discuss productivity take up even more time, over-stressing this thing tends to make people weary or stressed, and, on top of it all, studies show that productivity has ceased growing since 2007.