That simple, seemingly innocuous question turns out to be a cruel thief of time and productivity in the workplace. We looked at the latest research and discovered how much time, effort, concentration, and money is lost every year to distractions.
Modern Workplace – Friend and Foe
The open nature of today’s workspaces are designed to provide a more comfortable, collaborative environment. While there are many benefits, it has also created a perfect storm of consistent interruptions that commonly bog down daily workflow. A survey done by the Today show found that 44% of respondents couldn’t begin to count the number of times they are distracted at work by someone else and 36% responded 10 or more.1
Efficiency consultant Edward G. Brown calls these people “Time Bandits.” “Time Bandits are our friends, our bosses, our colleagues,” he said in a Washington Post article.
Ripple Effect
When someone is interrupted, for even a brief period of time, their work suffers.
- A distraction of 2.8 seconds doubles errors.2
- A one-minute break in concentration erases short-term memory.3
- It takes 25-minutes to get back on track.4
- There is a 9% higher exhaustion rate.5
Crunching the Numbers
It's estimated that 28% of an information worker’s productivity is lost to interruptions each day. This translates into:
- 2.1 hours per day
- 10.5 hours per week
- 504 hours per year
Total financial loss = $588 billion6
The Solution? Embrava Status Lights
A simple, cost-effective solution to the Time Bandit problem is the use of Embrava’s family of status lights. Our Blynclights offer a variety of applications in the modern workplace: desk spaces & low partitions, laptops & monitors, wireless connectivity & collaborative workspaces.
These sleek, durable units include a busy light indicator that turns from green to red providing a visual cue to surrounding coworkers when you are unavailable. You can use the default settings or any other color combination that best fits your office culture.
Blynclights Indicate Availability
The Embrava Blynclights are compatible with all major UC/VOIP platforms including Skype for Business/Lync, Jabber, RingCentral, Broadsoft, Cisco Finesse, Genesys PureCloud and many more. The Blynclight can also be integrated into your own applications.
The bottom line is Embrava:
- Reduces interruptions
- Streamlines collaboration
- Boosts productivity
Are you ready to give it a try in your workplace?
Sources:
1https://www.today.com/health/unproductive-blame-all-those-interruptions-work-1D79939911
2https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/brief-interruptions-spawn-errors
3https://www2.gmu.edu/news/1923
4https://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/chi08-mark.pdf
5https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01857282
6http://www.brigidschulte.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/costofnotpayingattention.basexreport-2.pdf
