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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
 Topic: Worker Distractions
Reference: Jackson, Maggie. “May We Have Your Attention, Please?”BusinessWeek, June 23, 2008. pp.55-56.
The number of distractions at work seems to be proliferating at an accelerating rate. Even if you have an office, there are countless interruptions from staff, the phone, cell phone, blackberry, faxes, office drop ins, instant messages, and the like. It makes it difficult to concentrate, focus on the tasks at hand, and to be effective at getting the work done in the normal workday. Often it takes extra hours just to maintain the status quo. To be effective now it takes a gameplan, a tasklist, and control over your environment. I chronicle many of these things in my book “Are You Ineffective?” (www.areyouineffective.com). In many ways, effectiveness is becoming the new standard for quality. In the referenced article, the commentator amplifies this theme and provides some distressing statistics on the cost of lost productivity caused by distractions. “These distractions consume as much as 28% of the average U.S. worker’s day, including recovery time, and sap productivity to the tune of $650 billion a year, according to Basex, a business research company in New York City”. Once distracted, it can take people upwards of half an hour to get back on track. You may have noticed this in your meetings, planning sessions, and program management as time and scope creep work to undermine implementation dates. The commentator indicates that the situation may be corrected by upgraded digital assistants and new information technologies that will help keep people on track. These are categorized as “attentional user inter-faces” which help e-mail programs and phone messages to be distributed in the least disruptive patterns. They also include sensitivity programs that assess your activity patterns and determine your “interruptibility”. Given the extent of the problem and the wealth loss caused by distractions, these technological enhancements offer some welcome relief. However, until these solutions become standard issue, it is incumbent upon management to begin to address the issue by as many means as possible. Things like a code of conduct for cube users, limiting uploads to desktops, and emphasizing the need to avoid disruptions the old fashion way (e.g. common courtesy, sign on door, queuing calls, etc.). It is hard to adjust for work life balance when time is essentially being wasted. Eliminating this waste may not only improve output but also allow for things like little league coaching and community service to be crowded back into your work day. It may also allow people to comfortably avoid checking e-mail in restaurants, and text messaging at ballgames. Things that I deem anti-social networking and that contribute to feelings of burnout. It is worth it to emphasize the need for focus with your management team and employees. Few organizations can really afford the current losses caused by excessive distractions. Let me know your thoughts on this important issue.
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