The Double-Edged Sword of Technology: Boosting and Hindering Productivity

Even when individuals believe they are concentrating, research indicates the typical office employee squanders more than a third of their working hours. There’s Facebook, of course, along with emails from friends containing YouTube links. After all that, is it time to grab a coffee?

Employee compensation constitutes the most substantial expense in the budget for most organizations, resulting in billions of dollars being wasted.

However, there’s a positive aspect: Lack of productivity indicates significant business potential.

Joe Hruska is quite candid about the actual amount of work any person accomplishes in a day.

“You’re not achieving 8 hours of productivity out of an employee, even if you have blinders on and that’s what you anticipate,” he remarks.

Hruska is the founder and CEO of RescueTime, a software company that enables users to subscribe to track how their computer time is utilized. The information he gathers indicates that — at most — a worker is productive for approximately five of those hours.

Productivity In A Transforming Workforce

I installed RescueTime on my personal device, and then awaited the findings with apprehension.

I admitted to Hruska that I was anxious about what I might discover, and questioned if it was a rare feeling. He explained, “That is, indeed, the most prevalent response that individuals have.”

With good reason, as it turns out. My report indicated that on my best day, I was merely 68 percent productive. Hruska mentions that simply being aware of where time is spent and wasted boosts the average user’s productivity by 10 percent.

However, productivity is not only about avoiding wasted time or getting rid of distractions. Increasingly, it involves adapting to a workforce that is shifting in its demographics.

The rise of tablets and internet-based computing permits more individuals to work remotely, but it also creates greater challenges for interoffice coordination.

Tim Bajarin, a technology analyst, states that organizations — from IBM and HP to smaller startups — are wrestling with how to improve workplace effectiveness.

“The tools required for them to thrive in their productivity are the No. 1 IT priority in any organization,” Bajarin claims.

Maintaining Connections At Work

A company known as Jive has created software that mimics social networking platforms, allowing colleagues to share notes or disseminate useful information — facilitating on-the-go coordination.

Cora Rodenbusch, a manager at PGi, a conferencing firm utilizing Jive, states that the software has reduced the time required to onboard new employees.

More frequently, the emphasis for many firms like hers is on enhancing collaboration — expediting information sharing, which accelerates projects and maintains productivity.

“Someone might say, ‘Hey, where’s our nondisclosure agreement?’ or, ‘Where’s the corporate holiday schedule?’ or similar inquiries. Then another person replies, ‘Hey, I just looked at it and here’s the link,’ sharing the link so you can retrieve your document,” Rodenbusch elaborates.

As a teleconferencing business, PGi is also considering productivity improvements for its own offerings — features that automatically share meeting notes or prevent discussions from dragging on excessively.

But is there a method to prevent individuals who enjoy hearing themselves talk from doing so?

“Actually, there is. As the meeting facilitator, you have the ability to lower participants’ volume or simply mute them entirely. Alternatively, you can dismiss them from the meeting at your discretion,” Rodenbusch states.

Some employers, adopting a stringent approach to extract more from their employees, monitor or limit their computer usage, for instance.

‘Fueling’ Employees’ Vitality

However, Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, contends that this type of punitive method — consistently highlighting what individuals are doing incorrectly — is counterproductive. Her research indicates that tracking progress in work, irrespective of how trivial, is overwhelmingly the most effective strategy.

“That absolutely overshadows every other positive occurrence for individuals,” she asserts.

Amabile appreciates a service provided by a startup called iDonethis. It encourages users to document what they accomplished at the end of each day. She claims this assists users in concentrating on their most significant objectives.

“And that positive internal work life energizes their motivation and emotions to advance the following day,” Amabile states.

Ultimately keeping motivated, she says, remains the most effective method to accomplish tasks.

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