● 65% of workers said that meetings keep them from completing their own work.
● Collaborative work now consumes 85% or more of most people’s work weeks. Time spent on email, IM, phone, and video calls — has risen 50% or more over the past decade. But there’s a lot that organizations can do to equip their employees to work more efficiently in this context, ultimately improving employee well-being, productivity, and retention.
● Before COVID-19, typically 30% of a knowledge-worker workday was spent on collaboration.
● Meetings doubled from 7 to 14 hours a week after the transition to remote working.
● IM traffic has increased by 65% aftern th etransition to remote working.
In response, forward-looking organizations are taking action to protect employees from the volume of collaborative demands by employing organizational network analysis (ONA).
● To run a good meetings remotely, reduce the meetings that include a dozen attendees.
● Employees typically spend 1,3 minute on reading every e-mail and receive typically 120 emails per day. Employees typically receive 120 emails perday (600 emails weekly). Employee typically spends 13 h weekly on reading and answering messages.
● Last year, researchers at Atlassian proved that the number of hours worked in 2020 for the average employee increased by more than half an hour.
● 86% of execs, employees, and educators blame ineffective communication for most failures in the workplace.
● A business with 100 employees loses an average of $528,000 annually clarifying lousy communication.
Managers report spending an average of about five hours a day working with other people. That’s five more hours a week than individual contributors spend working collaboratively.
● Many executives feel overwhelmed by meetings, and no wonder: on average, they spend nearly 23 hours a week inthem, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. What’s more, the meetings are often poorly timed, badly run, or both.
● 182 senior managers were surveyed in a range of industries: 65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work. 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient. 64% said meetings come at the expense of deep thinking. 62% said meetings miss opportunities to bring the team closer together.
● At a financial and regulatory consultancy we studied, for example, three months after managers began to rethink the firm’s approach to meetings, a survey showed that employees perceived significant improvements in team collaboration (a 42% increase), psychological safety to speak up and express opinions (a 32% increase), and team performance (a 28%increase). Other aspects of organizational life improved as well, and respondents’ ratings of satisfaction with work/life balance rose from 62% to 92%.
● According to the Linchpin Learning Manchester Companies, miscommunication can cost organizations almost 25-40 percent of their annual budget.
● Siemens also published a business case for effective internal communications in the year 2014, which puts the average downtime for a business with 100 working employees per week for 17 hours. It creates a demise of the annual cost up to $528,443.
● About 50% of the time, the main culprit of ouroverload can be found by looking in the mirror (Am I the only one uniquely qualified to address this issue?)
● Identity and reputation triggers such as a desire to help others, a sense of fulfillment from accomplishments, a desire to be influential/recognized, or a concern about being seen as a good colleague and contributor.
● Anxiety and the need for control triggers, such as fear of losing control of a projector outcome, a need for closure, dislike for ambiguity, and fear of missing out (FOMO).
● The average time employees spent per week in collaboration at the start of March 2020 was 21.4 hours (based on internal General Mills data from Microsoft Workplace Analytics). By the end of July, average hours spent in collaboration had increased to 25.7 hours per week — an increase of 20%.
● The correlation between fragmented time and both negative mood and employee fatigue was .55, meaning there was a very significant impact of collaborative overload on employee well-being.
● The implementation of a “Free-Form Fridays”policy. Employees were instructed to leave their calendars blocked starting at 2:00pm every Friday, to provide dedicated space to engage in “deep work,”catch-up on emails, and recharge.
● The initiation of more frequent pulse surveys focused on well–being and stress. Targeted actions emerged from a rapid cadence of employee listening. One action taken because of these surveys was more frequent, visible reminders from senior leadership to employees about the importance of prioritizing only the most important work and focusing onself-care. As an example, many senior leaders turned to video messages and a more frequent cadence of unscripted and authentic dialogue with their teams (and the company), in which they emphasized the need for prioritization, self-care, and a test-and-learn mindset.
● The development and deployment of “Ways ofWorking” training and tools for units with high levels of collaboration, stress, and negative mood. The “Ways of Working” interventions began by briefing leaders on the state of collaboration and mood among employees, and starting a dialogue about how the organization might act differently. Then, group sessions were held for each unit, teaching more effective practices and ways to guard against personally-driven collaborative overload.
● More efficient collaborators are able to be 18 to 24% more efficient than their peers by doing things like:
● Blocking out reflective time based on optimal personal rhythms. For some, this means answering emails first thing in the morning and then having a two-hour block for reflective work. For others, it means doing creative work early, and answering email in three blocks of 30-minutes throughout the day.
● Using triage rules in email. Email begets email, and we all have a tendency to want to answer the quick request that we can feel good about solving. More efficient people tend to block emails into different categories to process them at a given point in time, rather than allowing constant disruptions.
● Using “standing” meetings to make team problem-solving happen faster. More efficient leaders use weekly touch points to discuss one-off issues, rather than allowing excess disruptions to occur ad hoc. Team members post issues on collaboration platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams, and the team is encouraged to solve what they can ahead of meetings. Over time, leaders find that the number of one-off issues funneling through them declines substantially, as the team gets better at knowing who to turn to for what.
● Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton says meetings are more productive when only seven people (plus or minus two) are in attendance.
● The average knowledge worker only has 1h 12m of productive time a day without being interrupted by email and IM.
● 42% of managers strongly agree that they have multiple competing priorities, compared with 27%of individual contributors.
● Context switching can reduce employee productivity by 80%. According to computer scientist Gerald Wineberg, we lose20% of our productivity power with each new simultaneously juggled task. Thus, if we take on five competing assignments in one hour, losing our state of “flow” costs us up to 80% of what we could have accomplished otherwise.
● Those who context switch often, experience a 40%decrease in productivity overall.
● Multitasking can reduce our productivity by 40% (David Meyer and Jeffrey Evans, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Humanpanel).
● 40% of your productive time at work is spent on multitasking.
● Workers focus on average only 3minutes on any given task before switching to another, and about 2 minutes using any digital tool before switching.
● When interrelated tasks are combined (into what we call working spheres), then 57% of people’s working spheres are interrupted, and people stay on average about 11 minutes in a working sphere before switching to another.
● The more complex task, the more time is lost.
Uber tracked the usage of Slack and Zoom and saw:
● 40% increase in meetings and a 45% increase in the average number of participants per meeting;
● A greater than 3x increase in Zoom meetings and Slack messages.
● These interactions resulted in a 30% decrease in focus time (defined as two-plus hours per day of uninterrupted time that can be dedicated to a task or project).
● The team at Uber discovered a strong relationship between employees’ amount of focus time and their productivity, as measured in employee surveys.
Information:The company ran an experiment in late 2020 where they communicated the impact of focus time on productivity (along with tips for how to increase it) to a group of employees and then compared their focus time to employees who did not get this information. Focus time improved moderately for the informed group.
● Enablement: 20% increase in focus time in the experiment group that had an application to block the time (in a calendar) they needed for deep work
● The act of simply responding to a text can impose as much as a 64-second recovery time to get back on track.
● It takes an average of 23 minutes to get back to the task after an interruption (meeting, email) [8]
● 2h53 min - an average employee is productive only for 2h 53 min daily. During one hour employee is interrupted 7 times, each interruption takes about 5 minutes to get back to work (Humanpanel, vouchercloud.com)
● People who are frequently interrupted experience a higher workload, more stress, higher frustration, more time pressures, and have to exert more effort.
● Most people can’t go for more than 6 minute swithout checking those tools. (Even worse, 35.5% of workers check their emailand IM every 3 minutes or less.)
● Even if it’s not explicitly stated, we’re expected tocheck emails and respond to message right away. In fact, over 70% of people keep their inbox open all day long, yet only 20% have a plan with how and when they deal with email.
● Managers are 67% more likely than individual contributors to strongly agree they have a lot of interruptions at work.
● Up to 40% of our daily actions are powered by habits.
● https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-57633-6_20
● Perhaps unsurprisingly, employees who got little to no one-on-one time with their manager, were more likely to be disengaged. On the flip side, those who get twice the number of one-on-ones with their manager relative to their peers are 67% less likely to be disengaged.
● And what happens when a manager doesn’t meet with employees one-on-one at all? Employees in this situation are four times as likely to be disengaged as individual contributors as a whole, and are two times as likely to view leadership more unfavorably compared to those who meet with their managers regularly.
● Employees who do have regular 1:1 meetings with their managers are 3 times more likely to be engaged. “On average, only 15% of employees who work for a manager who does not meet with them regularly are engaged; managers who regularly meet with their employees almost tripled that level of engagement.“
● 630 billion $ - the cost of voluntary turnover in 2020 in US (Humanpanel, Work Institute 2020 Retention Report)
● Over 3.5 million Americans quit their jobs every month.
● 63% of employees believe it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that they could find a job as good as the one they have. And 51% of currently employed workers say they are actively looking for a new job or watching for openings.
● 41% of the workforce is considering leaving their employer this year.
● 52% of exiting employees say that their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving their job.
Nevertheless, only 51% of employees who left their job had a conversation about their engagement, development or future during the three months leading up to their departure.
● There are 8.1 million job openings in the U.S., the highest number in recorded history.
● There will be a global talent shortage of more than 85 million people by 2030.
● Four out of ten small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S. report problems filling open positions (humanpanel, HRtechnologist.com).
● 8,5 trillion $ - predicted unrealized revenue due to talent shortage in 2030 (Humanpanel, Korn Ferry Future of Work Study).
77% of employees have experienced burnout.
How Managers Can Prevent Their Teams from Burning Out. HBR, Jen Fisher, July 31, 2018
41% of American adults saying they’ve struggled with mental health due to COVID-19
2.2 times increases the chances for burnout for employees with the high workload
Employees who strongly agree that they always have too much to do are 2.2 times more likely to say they experience burnout very often or always at work. Gallup analytics show that the number of hours people work each week does matter. The risk of occupational burnout risk increases greatly when employees exceed an average of 50 hours per week and escalating even more substantially at 60 hours per week.
As videoconferencingh as skyrocketed, 55 percent of remote workers feel less connected, 46 percent feel more stressed, and 69 percent are experiencing burnout.
Employees who feel supported by their manager are about 70% less likely to experience burnout. In contrast, a negligent, absent or condescending manager leaves employees feeling uninformed, alone and defensive.
Micromanagement is increasing burnout by 43%
Employees are 43% less likely to experience high levels of burnout when they have a choice in what tasks to do, when to do them and how much time to spend on them.
What Are the Results of Burnout?
Employees who say they very often or always experience burnout at work are:
- 63% morelikely to take a sick day,
- ½ as likely to discuss how to approach performance goals with their manager,
- 23% more likely to visit the emergency room,
- 2.6 x as likely to be actively seeking a different job.
- 13% less confident in their performance,
How to Prevent Employee Burnout - Gallup
Fully remote workers are now experiencing more burnout than on-site workers.
● 38%: Percentage of workers who say they’ve experienced video call fatigue since the start of the pandemic.
● A new study by global staffing firm Robert Half shows video calls may be wearing on workers. More than three-quarters (76%) of professionals surveyed say they participate in virtual meetings, and those respondents report spending nearly one-third of their workday (30%) on camera with business contacts or colleagues. Meanwhile, 38% say they’ve experienced video call fatigue since the start of the pandemic; 26% note that the practicality and novelty of videoconferencing has worn off over the past eight months; and 24% confirm they find virtual meetings inefficient and exhausting and prefer to communicate via other channels, like email or phone.
● Nearly half of professionals working remotely (49%) reported a high degree of exhaustion as a direct result of numerous daily video calls. Referred to as “Zoom fatigue”, the exhaustion stems from a combination of increased meetings and the pressure to have webcams on for all of them. The survey includes insights from 1,700+ managers and employees
● The study found that 63% of remote workers are participating in more meetings online than they would have in the office, with 30% spending 2-3 hours daily meeting on camera.
Employee Wellbeing Is Key for Workplace Productivity.
What is the cost of poor wellbeing? - Gallup
● 75% of medical costs accrued mostly due to preventable conditions.
● $20 million of additional lost opportunity for every 10,000 workers due to struggling or suffering employees.
● $322 billion of turnover and lost productivity cost globally due to employee burnout.
● 15% to 20% of total payroll in voluntary turnover costs, on average, due to burnout.
Job Stressors Affect Managers More Than Individual Contributors
● One company has seen 52% IMs rise between 6 p.m. and 12 p.m.
● Workday longer than 9 hours may result in mental and physical health issues, burnout, lower reception to more complex challenges, and lower self esteem and loyalty.
2 in 10
● Only 2 in 10 employees strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.
● Why does the employee experience matter? All of the individual moments of an employee's experience play a role in how a worker feels about an employer's purpose, brand and culture.
● Employee experience directly affects employee engagement, retention, performance and development.
● One-third of global employees strongly agree with the statement, "The mission and purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important."
● By moving that ratio to eight in 10 employees,business units have realized a 51% reduction in absenteeism, a 64% drop in safety incidents, and a 29% improvement in quality.
● Only 38% of employees report being highly satisfied with their everyday work experiences.
● How to Demonstrate the Business Value of Employee Experience
● 22% = average engagement among employees worldwide
● Employee engagement has been slowly but steadily rising in the U.S. and worldwide. In the U.S.,engagement climbed from 26% in 2000 to 36% in 2020. Globally, it increased from 12% in 2009 to 20% in 2020.
● Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores. 70%of a team's engagement is influenced by managers.
● Gallup's analysis finds that engagement in Europe has barely budged in the past 10 years. Europe: fewer than two in 10 employees are engaged by their day-to-day workplace experiences.
51% of actively disengaged European employees say they felt stressed the previous day, compared with 31% of engaged workers -- a finding that has serious implications for their physical and mental health.
These companies who are using Gallup are able to engage 44% of their workforce, compared with only16% across Europe.
● Less than 2 in 10 - employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization communicates effectively with the rest of the organization.
● Less than 2 in 10 - employees strongly agree the leadership of their organization makes them feel enthusiastic about the future.
● Less than ¼ - of employees strongly agree their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.
● Gallup: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/216209/develop-managers-leaders.aspx.
● 65% of employees would rather have a new manager than a pay raise.
Teams with highly talented managers achieve 48% higher profitability, 22% greater productivity, and 30% better employee engagement scores.
Remote workers can have higher engagement than in-office workers -- when they receive frequent feedback from their manager.
● 47% of employees report receiving feedback from their manager "a few times a year" or less.
● Although leaders may fear being micromanagers, most employees receive far too little feedback -- and even those who receive negative feedback would prefer to get more.
● https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-survey-managers/
● 55% of companies still need help in putting basic People Analytics into practice (Human Panel, LinkedIn Global Talents Trend Report).
● 70% of the managers in the U.S. plan to have employees back in the office by Fall 2021, while 61% of U.S. employees want to work from home (Humanpanel, LaSalle Network, Gallup)
● 62% of workers in the future will prefer employers that permit some remote work (Humanpanel, Livecareer).
● 29% of workers will quit if not allowed to go remote (Humanpanel, Livecareer).
● 82% of millennials prefer to work from home at least one day a week.
● A recent LinkedIn survey of 2,000 working professionals and 1,000 hiring managers found that 82% of workers want to work from home at least one day per week, and 57%want to work from home at least three days per week.
● Research has shown performance benefits. A 2015 study by Nicholas Bloom and coauthors found that when employees opted in to WFH policies, their productivity increased by 13%. When, nine months later, the same workers were given a choice between remaining at home and returning to the office, those who chose the former saw even further improvements: They were 22% more productive than they had been before the experiment. This suggests that people should probably determine for themselves the situation (home or office) that fits them best.
● Engaged employees are more productive resulting in a 21% increase in profits (Humanpanel, Gallup).
● Multitasking can reduce our productivity by 40% (David Meyer and Jeffrey Evans, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Humanpanel).
● An average employee is productive only for 2h 53min daily. During one hour employee is interrupted 7 times, where each interruption takes about 5 minutes to get back to work (Humanpanel, vouchercloud.com).
● A Gallup report from 2013 estimated that disengaged US employees cost the economy between $450 billion and $550 billion a year in lost productivity.
● Research by Hogan Assessments showed that 75%of employees considered their direct boss to be “the worst part of their job”.
● Research from Salary.com shows that 23% of employees look for a new job every single day. The same research also showed the majority of those searching cite having a “poor manager” or “poor relationship with manager” as their reason.
● Reinforcing this, Dale Carnegie’s 2016 Leadership Study indicated 41% of the global workforce will likely change jobs this year. Again, “bad management” was the #1 reason for switching jobs.
● Survey of 1,000 American employees conducted by Michelle McQuaid, 65% of respondents indicated they’d take a new boss over a pay raise.
● The time for new hires to achieve full productivity ranged from eight weeks for clerical jobs to 20 weeks for professionals to more than 26 weeks for executives.
● On average, it costs small businesses about $1,200 to train a new hire and takes eight to 26 weeks for that person to achieve full productivity.
● In a survey in the Harvard Business Review, executives of large organizations estimated that soft skills issues were costing them over $144,500 every day.
