The Distracted Workplace

How to create a HEALTHY and PRODUCTIVE workplace

David Ryan Polgar

Think of your workplace.

How long can you go without being interrupted?

3 minutes.According to a recent study by Weekdone, the average worker gets interrupted every three minutes.

Interruptions add up.

The same study estimated that these interruptions cost businesses about 9260 Euros in lost productivity per person each year.

Distractions from mobile phones and social media in the workplace is both an INTERNAL and EXTERNAL problem.

In other words, there are a lot of distractions in the workplace AND we are easily distracted. A two-prong approach is needed.

Internal: Mobile phones and social media designed to highjack our dopamine reward system. Slot machines.

External: Flood of emails, instant messages, and more, and the expectation (telepressure) for the employee to respond immediately.

Who cares if we have a distracted workplace?

A distracted workplace is an unhealthy workplace.

Impact on both mental/emotional and physical health of employees. Let’s focus today on the mental impact.

Mental:

Stress/Anxiety related to always being “on”

Poor sleep

Reduced ability towards critical and creative thinking

“[W]hat the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”-Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”from Atlantic magazine. Former editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Think of your workplace.

How are you, or your workers, typically interrupted?

1. Mobile phones/texting

2. The Internet

3. Gossip

4. Social Media

5. Email

Employers surveyed said the biggest productivity killers in the workplace are: (2015 CareerBuilder Survey)

In order to create a healthier and more productive workplace, we need to create a workplace that can reduce distractions externally and empower workers internally.

For years we have tried to limit external distractions in the workplace.

We created the cubicle.

The pendulum has recently swung the other way, towards open floor plans to promote collaboration.

We are still struggling with understanding what it means to be a knowledge worker, and how to design a work environment that maximizes the productivity and overall well-being of a knowledge worker.

We are designing a healthy workplace for the knowledge worker.

“Busyness as Proxy for Productivity: In the absence of clear indicators of what it means to be productive and valuable in their jobs, many knowledge workers turn back toward an industrial indicator of productivity: doing lots of stuff in a visible manner.”

-Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Created a healthier workplace starts with reassessing what we DESIRE from our knowledge workers, and what are the IDEAL conditions to produce those results.

TAKEAWAY:

A distracted workplace is an unhealthy workplace , and distractions come from both external pressures (respond quickly, look busy) and internal issues (slot machine design hijacks our brain).

By taking a mindful tech approach to the workplace, we are better able to cultivate a healthy environment.

“We think there’s a linear relationship between time spent working and results, but so often the time away, the stop to rest, the long cup of tea, following our breath, replenishes us and brings insight. That’s what the neuroscience is telling us too...We are a values-based company, and our first value is to keep it human. When we get away from that, we need to positively disrupt the paradigm.” -Rich Fernandez, head of learning and organizational development at eBay