The history of the negative impact of technological innovations on productivity in the workplace dates back to the times when it appeared in offices for landline phones. The continuous information cycle, notifications indicating the arrival of "very important" messages, multichannel content flow in the network have meant that productivity at work is constantly decreasing.
Figure 1 Distracted employee
According to research conducted by the Central Bank of the UK, smartphone users reach their devices at least once every seven minutes. The research shows that performing tasks that require focus while reading e-mails and receiving calls reduces the employee's IQ by ten points compared to the colleagues who perform duties at work without this type of disruption. Lowering IQ by ten points can be compared to a sleepless night. The employee who has been notified by the phone during his task, needs about half an hour to return to the right level of concentration. Employees began to get used to the fact that something constantly bothers them at work, so they do not even achieve the level of focus necessary for productive task performance and are proactively looking for incentives that keep them off the job.
Figure 2 Multitasking and cell phone as a performance killer
According to the research carried out by MIT, performing many activities at once, so popular during the times of the Internet and increased information circulation, is the enemy of productivity. Although technology has contributed to productivity growth earlier, in the middle of the first decade of the new century, the number of scatters in the workplace has reached a critical point.
Figure 3 A slight exaggeration, will you agree?
Questions:
- Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
- Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
- Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
Sources:
- https://www.businessinsider.com/cell-phone-sabotages-productivity-2018-3?IR=T
- https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/09/top-distractions-at-work-and-how-to-increase-productivity.html
- https://flexteaminc.com/cell-phone-no-nos-on-the-temp-job-scene/
Ad1. Technology is another tool - just as a knife is neither good nor bad, so the use of technology makes it improve or degrade work efficiency. Browsing social media has a negative impact on work efficiency, the impact of the messenger is more dependent on the nature of the messages sent.
ReplyDeleteAd2. It depends on the nature of the employee. There are people who feel good when they subdue the chaos - distraction is their normal state. There are also people who require a mythical "flow" for efficient work - for them, scattering prevents any work for a long time after an urgent phone call.
Ad3. Just as you can not work in a group without communicating with others, on the other hand it is worth normalizing the ways and hours of communication. A simple phone call from the manager at the wrong time can put an employee out of balance, so I suggest to dedicate from the time of work a period of focus in which no one will call or require an urgent response to the email.
Hmm, interesting. I thought that messanger always has negative impact on the employee workflow. I agree, each of us is different and everyone is capable of handling such chaos in their own way.
DeleteAs for myself i keep finding the 'focus period' while listening to music. The work efficiency increases with this practice.
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ReplyDeleteTechnology brings with it good and bad sides, it also affects productivity in the workplace. People using technology at work should be aware of how much time I can spend browsing "important messages" on the phone or other "interesting" information. Such a conscious approach to "time eaters" will reduce the negative impact on productivity at work.
ReplyDeleteJob satisfaction depends mainly on people. Everyone experiences the level of job satisfaction differently. Others try not to distract themselves in order to do the best work and have a high level of satisfaction with the work done. Others, on the other hand, do not care about it and do not care about the work done, just do they. Personally, while working, I try to disconnect myself from "notifications" and I do not review them to focus on the task and do it in the best possible way. And I feel good about it.
The negative effects of using technology at work will not be eliminated in 100%. However, you can reduce their negative impact on productivity at work.
To a large extent, it is employees who should set their own limits, and the use of telephones, social networking sites or e-mail browsing should be kept to a minimum. You can live without it. At work, you can also set certain hours at which you read and reply to your work mail. During this time you can also reply to calls you have received before. It is not possible to apply these rules in every type of work, but it is worth modifying them and introducing them into everyday work. They will allow you to increase your concentration at work and relax in a period of dispersion. Maybe you will be more satisfied with your work :)
I agree, but how can we create such conscious among employees? Let's say you work in a corporate open space office, there are a lot of scatters around. You have to work a certain amount, it is impossible to keep yourself focused in such enviroment even with few breaks during the day.
DeleteIn my opinion, it is difficult to create such an awareness among employees. Perhaps training in time management at work will have some effect. But still, the employees themselves must, in my opinion, simply love their work, then such awareness will create itself.
DeleteHowever, it happens very rarely :(
1. In my opinion, it depends on the type of work you are doing. Based on my case, it also depends on the tasks that it currently performs. When I really need to focus, I put headphones on my ears and turn myself completely off. Otherwise, not only the phone is a factor that can distract me, but It could also be talking colleagues or any other office sounds.
ReplyDelete2. I'm not sure. It seems to me that it depends and every person feels it differently.
3. Of course, the employer can prohibit the use of telephones while working, but I do not think this is a good solution. A better way is to mute your phone. People who are preoccupied with work will not look at the phone with every notification.
Listening to music is definitely a good option to have our thoughts kept in one place, I practice that a lot ;)
DeleteThat's what I hate about forcing employees to sit at work even though they have their work done and they're just getting bored and eventually keep looking at their mobile phones.
Yes and no. At one hand I wouldn't be able to work as efficient as I am without technology, I can just google most of the issues I'm having and in minutes I will find a solution, but on the other its a lot easier to procrastinate due to the amount of messages/notifications we are getting etc. But in the end I think its individual problem, even without the technology we could procrastinate by going out for a chat while making coffee, or having a smoke outside etc.
ReplyDeleteI think its also very personal thing, someone who doesn't care about his work won't be bother by it at all.
If someones job requires to be constantly available via email or company chat like Slack, it might be hard to do so. Maybe planning certain amount of working hours just for answering emails etc would help in this case, but then this person would be a lot less responsive during the rest of the day.
Breaks are necessary, no doubt. Personally, in order to avoid the temptation of checking on mobile phone constantly, I keep my phone in a pocket during working hours. You're right, there are job types which force us to work in such enviroment and this might be inevitable.
Delete1. Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDeleteWell, not all of course but a smartphone definitely. I know it from my own expirence. If I don't refrain from looking at phone at the end of the day I feel like I didn't do a good job.
I try to use my phone as little as possible when I'm at work because it ruins my productivity.
2. Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
I don't know if everybody are less happy but I certenly am but it comes from my attitude to work that when I do something I want to do it as best and efficient as I can.
3. Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
First of all it requiers to be aware of a problem and I think that not everybody are aware of it. Second of all it requiers strong will to fight with such a addiction.
I'm not sure if employers can do something to prevent it - especially in IT.
Smartphones are killers of productivity, it is good that you have such awarness. This kind of addiction is just so common in our world that it is omitted as something bad very often. Perhaps, turning off all the notifications at your phone can be a recipe?
DeleteIt surely can help :) On the other hand a little bit of relax is needed as well. Sometimes I let myself look at phone just before dinner to refresh mi mind a little bit but I'm still not sure if it's a good idea.
DeleteTechnology helps at work, but only when we use it properly. Most of devices were invented to improve peoples’ performance and make hard work less hard, but if people use them for other purposes it becomes a distractor not helper. I appreciate good work and get satisfaction from doing things properly, so I can’t imagine to be happy after whole day of looking at my phone. I don’t know if others have the same, probably yes, so I can guess that distracted people are less happy.
ReplyDeletePrevention is my decision not to check messages every seven minutes. At work I usually have phone in my, so it’s not convenient to look at it very often.
It's better to keep our phones away or having it semi-disabled. Sometimes I feel a little bit sad for people who are staring at their phones all day long, hopefully I will not find myself in such position.
DeleteUnfortunately most people before they realize, are standing all day long with phone stuck to hand.
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ReplyDelete1. It depends on what you use it. If, for example, you use a smartphone for social media or play games, then at this point the technology will certainly interfere with work efficiency. If, however, your computer is very technologically efficient, your work goes more efficiently.
ReplyDelete2. It probably depends on the man. I would not generalize this.
Personally, when I use my phone I disperse and I prefer to work without being distracted by these technological novelties.
3. Honestly, I don't think so. It's hard to answer this question.
1. Of course, sometimes I use my phone at work, but I am aware that it distracts me very much and I cant get a grip on my work. I have one employee who is notorious on the phone and stops working at 50% efficiently. So this is the effect.
ReplyDelete2 I think that when a person focuses on his duties and derives joy from them, he does not even think about the phone. However, there are many works that need contact with facebook and phone then there is a different situation.
3. It depends on the employee and man. It cant be clearly prevented.
I think it's hard topic. In my job, many employees use their phones to listen to music and to answer important calls. But they also make sure that the phone stays calm and does not disturb others at work. I think that impact on productivity is dependent on every employee individually. For example, I know that I can easily be distracted, so when I can, I turn off vibrations to forget about notifications for a moment. Satisfaction is also dependent on every employee so I can't answer this question. It's also hard to say how to prevent negative effects. This is a topic for more discussion.
ReplyDeleteTechnology as mobile phones distracts not only in work. Not long ago I’ve read that not using mobile phone for 30 minutes before a sleep makes your sleep much better. Now I’ve started to take a book with me to the bed and that helped me a lot. That’s why I agree that technology such as using facebook or any social medias has a negative impact on productivity. This kind of things can really steal an attention and are easily to get addicted to because of dopamine delivery.
ReplyDeleteFor me it’s hard to tell because satisfaction in my opinion depends on atmosphere in workplace. Also working with kind and friendly people can bring you lots of enjoyment. And for me that’s more important things.
I can’t really think of any solution for that problem. Because taking phones away from employees would be a nonsense. In the one hand they can easily draw an attention away from a task but in the other hand they are used to communicate and not only in work but also with family. I believe that people should get more educated about negative causes of using mobile phones too much.
I've heard about this theory, but never actually tried it by myself. Indeed, the education is something we should begin with to slowly encourage people to use their mobile phones less.
Delete1. I think that technology may have a negative impact but it can also be helpful to focus your mind on something else. It is not possible to stay always focused with the tasks on the job. Sometimes we need some kind of distraction to free our mind and look at the problem after not thinking about it for a while.
ReplyDelete2. I think we are distracting ourselves to not think for a few moments or just being curious about the world. Job satisfaction has nothing to do with it. We are constantly being distracted and job is just another place for that. I am not judging but saying that is happening.
3. We can try to limit using the phones during the work hours but if we cannot control it then there is not much that the employee can do about it other than getting fired.
I've had this problem on my own due to having some important conversations during my work time. Sometimes when we keep going with such dialogs it's almost impossible to focus on things that we're currently working on, what can cut our productivity for almost whole day. On my own I can say that when I have days like that I feel tired after work and very unsatisfied with stuff I've done during that workday. I guess that the best approach to improve productivity and be able to read notifications etc is to make people use some helpers - eg pomodoro clock or software monitoring user's activity. Programs like this help to focus for selected time period and let us have a quick break when time lasted.
ReplyDeleteNever heard about Pomodoro clock before. I will have to try this one for sure, thanks!
Delete1. Is productivity, but only when people are responsible. Some people are abusing phones at work. But when you use it responsibly, your work can be more productivity.
ReplyDelete2. I think that people are distracting ourselves because they wan't to not think a few moments. It's kind of relax. Job satisfaction has nothing to do with it.
3. We can try to limit use phone at work, but it's risky. It should become a forbidden fruit. So people will use phones more, that earlier.
I have no doubt that using mobile phones at workplace is definitive productivity killer. Some time ago I had the same problem. Continuous stream of “extremely important” notifications made me so unstable that I was unable to deliver any more ambitious task than simple, well-known problems that I could write almost mechanically. After discovering this fact I just hid my phone to the backpack and I check the notifications only once for a few hours. That let me come back to my previous level of productivity. I’m not sure how using mobile phone can affect work satisfaction and happiness but based on my personal experience I can guess that it’s quite probable. If we assume that conscious mind is a source of happiness then constant disrupting it with notifications has definitely negative impact. The only way to prevent the adverse effects is self-control and increasing awareness in society how unfavorable it can be for their work performance.
ReplyDeleteI've done the same thing, keep it up! We will increase our daily performance eventually with a benefit to employer as well as to ourselves.
DeleteIt depends. For a programmer the technology is a tool, so I believe it increases the productivity, since writing code on paper would quite painful. Mobile phones, on the other hand, are probably very distracting if you are not mobile worker.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure but I believe that they would be happier if they spent few minutes on smalltalking with their colleagues instead of pointlessly scrolling facebook.
I think one of the way to reduce negative effects would be to use some productivity techniques, for instance pomodoro. It helps to focus during the working period and also provide some free time to let your brain rest.
I think technology in the workplace may have a bad effect on productivity, as the employees are getting more and distracted. There are a lot of negative emotions flowing through our minds, as the smartphones are connecting us to more and more sources, therefor very large amounts of information are received by us. I think, that on overall this has a bad effect on our work, as we have a tendency to prolong and procrastinate our tasks. This later results in frustration, as we don’t deliever our work timely. I believe a good way to prevent the mentioned from happening is to only operate one device at a time and turn our smartphone off at work.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to tell when you work in technology :D For me it's not, I think that night parties are more distracting or exhausted employees with too much stuff on their heads.
Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
Yes, but I wouldn't blame technology. Sometimes the order of work is made in the company the way that people are distracted just by doing their everyday duties. For example by giving too much cases to tackle or something like that. So technology is our friend, the way we use it is bad :)
Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
I can't say. There are good and the bad days while you work, so it's good to have this in mind. Sometimes, when I go to work I feel like it's not my day, but after all, after few days I'm able to handle stuff. It depends on a person and on the occupation.
Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDeleteI would not say that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity. I would say that social media and constant need to consume more information has a negative impact on productivity. Technology itself is not a problem, problem is with how we use it.
Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
For sure. Especially when they spend a lot of time on social media. Social media encourage us to compare ourselves to other people on the Internet every hour. We see posts of more successful people, richer people, happier people (or that's how they want to be seen on the internet). That affects happiness and satisfaction from work.
Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
I don't really see a solution at the moment. Big companies want our data, our attention and our time. Apps and phones are designed to lure people to use them all the time. We need more awareness from the users of technology.
I think we are all stacked in this loop of madness. Honestly I can't think of any person who is free of that negative impact. I have no idea how can we save future generations from that, guess there no way out.
DeleteI think that technology in the workplace can have negative impact on productivity if you use it the wrong way. If you are are being distracted by lots of things you won't do your job because you have to spend time responding to mails etc. If you on the other hand will manage what to do in what time you can take advantage of lots of automatizations around technology.
ReplyDeleteI think if you use technology the wrong way (as I wrote previously) then you will do less of your job and you can be unhappy with your performance. So yes it can couse less satisfaction from your job.
The only way I'm preventing such distractions is by not doing everything all the time. I try to focus on opne thing for 25 minutes and then do other thing if required.
I think that technology in the workplace can have negative impact on productivity if you use it the wrong way. If you are are being distracted by lots of things you won't do your job because you have to spend time responding to mails etc. If you on the other hand will manage what to do in what time you can take advantage of lots of automatizations around technology.
ReplyDeleteI think if you use technology the wrong way (as I wrote previously) then you will do less of your job and you can be unhappy with your performance. So yes it can couse less satisfaction from your job.
The only way I'm preventing such distractions is by not doing everything all the time. I try to focus on opne thing for 25 minutes and then do other thing if required.
Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDeleteYes and I don't think that it's even worth arguing with! Everyone is different but I personally fill huge difference working while I'm focused only at one thing than being bombed with information from every side.
Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
It's hard to say. I think it depends on self awareness. Personally I felt guilty so many times for wasting hours watching useless stuff on the net/phone not even at work but also in my 'free' time. But I also used to work with the girl that was texting constantly for entire day but she had no idea why she can't keep up with job (:D).
Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
I think the good practice that I'm trying to push myself into is at 1st leaving my phone in unreachable place with just short amount of contact that I leave with call sound on and convincing myself that after few hours of not refreshing youtube/instagram/fb not much changed and the only thing that matter is my time saved.
Seems like the girl is not aware that she's stacked with the addiction. It's kind of funny and sad at the same moment. I hope that she figured out why she couldn't keep up with her work ;)
Delete1. Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDelete2. Do you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
3. Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
1. I am not sure if it is fault of technology. If people were forbidden of using their personal smartphones in work, they would use company computers to browse news etc. But even if these would be forbidden, people would spend much time in another way, eg. talking to each other, or feigning working and lallygaging. People can't physically focus all the time on one task. They have to have breaks.
2. It depends on the employee. Some of them can't work effectively even without distractions and some can work effectively even with distractions. So I think satisfaction comes with results and results depends on many different factors.
3. Yes. There should be more research on the subjects and results of the research should be implemented in professional life. As a result of these people should work less hours a day, less days a week and earn more money. I think with such conditions people would be much more effective and focused in their daily work ;)
I don't fully agree with thesis in the first question, its not technology that is a problem nor are smartphones themselves, as usual it's people. I own a smartphone like most of us, but I don't feel a need of reaching out for it every 7 minutes. Of course it's hard to argue that it definitely have super negative impact on productivity at work.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned above its hard to decide, I'm less happy at work if I had a bad sleep at night or something like that, but also it will make me equally unhappy if I'm gonna be in a same state in any other situation :)
My advice to prevent so much distraction is as simple as keep your phone away from eyesight, switch it to mute, put screen down on the table so it won't be flashing with push notification every 2 minutes. Ah, and one more advice ... don't buy smart watch :)
Do you think that technology in the workplace has a negative impact on productivity?
ReplyDeleteIf we're talking about using smartphones, then yes, as you wrote in the article, every notification is much more important than our actual work or task. Basically, it's distracting as we need to switch between many things and then get focused on the work again. Also, multitasking is quite difficult if we want to achieve similar (or better) level of productivity as on single task focus (from my experience), but some of my colleagues prefer starting many tasks in the same time more than just finish end to end one of them, so it depends.
o you think that the employees who are distracted are less happy and have lower level of satisfaction with their own work?
Generally yes, but it's difficult to be focused on the same level for 8 hours, so sometimes it's not a distraction but a little break to refresh our minds. Some time ago, I used technique called Pomodorro, so I split my working hours into 25mins full focus chunks of time and then, 5mins of relax and frankly speaking, it worked for me, my productivity was higher than normally.
Can we somehow prevent the negative effects mentioned in the above post?
Yes, I haven't mentioned that earlier but also open spaces are distracting as other people can e.g. talk via smartphones. To prevent such situations, as a solution employee can determine some rules of small breaks or using the smartphones at work which could be accepted by boss. Also, there are many applications to block websites or to track employees activity at work but for me, clear rules are much better than tracking activity and would be more respected by employees
Looks like another person tried this technique, now I have to try it myself. Well, tomorrow is a working day so I guess I will do it then. We will need to wait for these practices to come alive, not every company is following the modernity.
DeleteIt all depends on how people use technology. It is obvious that distraction have a negative impact on productivity and nowadays, when the technology is so common, there is a whole lot of distracting factors. As it is written in the post, it is also worth remembering that the technology allowed us to reach the level of productivity that we have now. Honestly, I don’t see any connection between distraction and happiness or satisfaction with work. I believe that if you do what you like, you'll just be happy. Moreover if you do what you like, all distracting factors won’t be attractive enough to divert your attention from really interesting work. I don’t consider any phone prohibition or phone call prohibition as an option. A better option will be to educate and make people aware that, for example, refreshing the Instagram feed every 5 minutes can have a serious impact on their effectiveness not only at work but also in life in general.
ReplyDeleteThe instagram is an evil, isn't it? I feel like every social media application stupefy us at some point. The fact that we have an access to these technologies in our smartphones make it even worse. Phone prohibition might lead to significant decrease in employee satisfaction and also to work departure.
DeleteYep, those distractors are very annoying. I can not focus when someone is talking nearby, but constant push notifications are even worse. It stresses me out, definitely makes me nervous. I have solution for this - I mute them, I have special profiles in these apps. I only read emails and receive calls when I plan to. It boosted my productivity.
ReplyDeleteI have disabled almost every notification source in my smartphone. I can feel the difference immediately.
DeleteFrom my experience as an office manager I can say that using smartphones in work has negative impact for employees. Especially nowadays when using smartphones is so common. Of course, I’m generalizing but when I’m talking about this problem with other managers in my company, they often saying that they see the problem. It's difficult to be focused on "resolving some problems" when your mobile displaying messages all the time. Unfortunately, I have the same problem with my mobile :P My solution is hiding phone to the desk drawer. But my girlfriend thinks then that "something was happened" and she's calling to me to my desk phone :P
ReplyDeleteHaha, guess there is no way out of that then. Well, you'd better tell her that you're working hard, being focused all day long and in order to achieve that you had to hide your phone. She will understand, no doubt ;)
DeleteIt depend how employees use technology and inappropriate usage of it has negative impact on productivity for example mobile games of just looking what's up on Facebook or Instagram. But it's only one side of technology and only an example. On the other hand we have many opportunities to improve our productivity like e.g. Internet.
ReplyDeleteIt has to be some balance between work and rest, so people will be more focused at task and won't look for anything else till they finish part or all tasks. People should know that that those breaks has negative impact on their work and try to avoid it.
I don't think technology itself have negative impact on our productivity. It's just a tool and can be used for both good and bad things. However most of us use smartphones for facebook, messenger and other entertainment applications. Personally I try to not use my phone at work. It is surprisingly distracting and severely decrease my productivity. Not to mention how time consuming it is. My solution? I put my phone into "only phone calls" mode where all notifications are muted.
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm putting my phone out of my sight when I'm working. Unfortunately I'm unable to focus when I hear notification that can quickly lead to conversation which yield to abandoning the work. I don't think that technology in the workplace has negative impact. I believe that internet is one of the best places to look for answers when I'm encountering a problem though I often see people using smartphones or internet with things unrelated with work that they perform. I also don't agree that people that are distracted are unhappy and unsatisfied e.g while using Facebook while working (I think scrooling wall is the most popular thing to do while doing anything) they might post some staff that will reward them with likes and likes as we know make people happy and give meaning to existence so I think that scroll addicted should find work that is related to posting such as profile administration or maybe see it as a problem and look for help becouse for me uncontrollable usage of smartphone might be considered as addiction same as alkohol or drugs. Generally I believe that focus is one of the most important things in order to do good work and while I'm focused I don't want to be distracted so turning all devices off is in my opinion best way. You can always check your smartphone on brake.
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ReplyDeleteI do not think the technology is the most distracting thing during work - I think other people are! Couple of times I had to work overtime, over the weekend - I usually came to completely empty office, just to get fully concentrated on my tasks. (my family do not know what is "working from home" and would bother me all the time :)). My productivity proved fantastic (with all those electronic devices around me and full access to youtube) .No one was asking me questions, telling jokes and histories from his personal life, there were no heated debates about politics - this problem with other employees bothering you become particularly big when you are working in open space. But even in a close space, there may be one very talkative guy (e.g. my manager) - recently he was on paternity leave for some time - and during his absence, I managed to improve my performance significantly. However, in the long run, I would find the lack of such people around me extremely annoying. I come to the office not only to work, but also to have a contact with other people.
ReplyDelete