According to research from human resource consulting firm Randstad, while multitasking is now a requirement of nearly nine out of ten jobs, the effect of multitasking is having a significant and detrimental impact on worker productivity and job satisfaction.
As a result of technology and social media, multitasking has become a much bigger part of people’s jobs on a daily basis. According to Randstad’s research, 45% of respondents said they had to deal with more multitasking in their job than they did 2-3 years ago. This included dealing with an increased number of communication channels like email, mobile phones and multiple screens, as well as access to social media sites. Based on the poll of 2,025 British adults, employees in Edinburgh, London and Glasgow were most likely to find that their job involved multitasking as a standard requirement. Randstad found that up to 70% of the employers they dealt with regarded the ability to multitask as an important skill for an employee to have.
The modern office, with it’s open plan design and emphasis on collaboration, can negate the productivity gains made by digital technology through the constant interruptions and distractions that make it a struggle to get work done on a daily basis. While multitasking may seem as a more effective use of time, with multiple tasks being managed concurrently, a University of California-Irvine study found that regaining momentum after an interruption took, on average 23 minutes. With studies finding workers can be interrupted or self-interrupted as frequently as every three minutes, time lost to multitasking can add up to a significant slice of the working day. The Randstad study estimated that workers were losing up to 120 minutes a day to multitasking and interruptions, and with 22.76 million people working full-time in the UK, the economy is losing up to 1 billion working days worth of productivity every year due to multitasking.
While workers were aware of the impact multitasking has on their productivity, another study by the University of London it was also having an impact on worker’s IQ. A simple distraction during a worker’s day could result in the equivalent loss of up to 10 IQ points while multitasking, degrading their clarity of thought and taking a stressful toll on their productivity. The study also warned against the rise of ‘Infomania’ or the obsession with email and text messages. The need to constantly break away from tasks to react to these messages reduced worker’s mental sharpness and could have a similar effect on the worker’s mind as losing up to a night’s sleep.
Some organisations have recognised the negative impact of multitasking and have taken steps to limit distractions and give workers the opportunity to focus on the job in front of them. These have included allowing workers to block out sections of time where they are not to be distracted so they can focus on a specific project or problem, removing access to devices in certain situations like meetings, and changing the way staff communicate with each other within an office to prioritise messaging and the importance of a colleague to respond in a timely manner. Many employees though, still find themselves having to multitask and be available and responsive as standard practise, and are left to their own devices in terms of managing their productivity. The Randstad research found that only 33% of respondents had an effective strategy to deal with multitasking and productivity, and 46% of respondents disliked the need to multitask on a daily basis as a requirement of their job.
As technology in the workplace continues to evolve, the demands on worker’s attention will only increase. Understanding the true cost of multitasking on productivity, worker motivation, job satisfaction and intelligence means employers will have to soon start to assess whether the drive to make employees multitask is truly having a beneficial impact on their company or is actually a productivity issue.
Link: https://www.randstad.co.uk/multitasking-the-real-cost/