Clutter is taking a toll on both morale and productivity. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School studied the daily routines of more than 230 people who work on projects that require creativity. As might have been expected, she found that their ability to think creatively fell markedly if their working days were punctuated with meetings. They did far better if left to focus on their projects without interruption for a large chunk of the day, and had to collaborate with no more than one colleague.
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Decluttering the company [The Economist]
Decluttering the company [The Economist]
jon
on 06 Aug 14thanks, that is going on my propagandaboard at work
Joe
on 07 Aug 14“Volkswagen has spared its German staff from having to read work e-mails after hours—and even BCG has introduced rules on when its consultants are entitled to go “offline” in the evenings.”
What the what? Who the hell would work at a company where being “offline” during your personal time is an entitlement or that you’d be expected to read work e-mails after hours? Really? It’s a strange world where one needs permission to not be working when they are not working. It doesn’t take a study on morale to imagine what a hell that would be.
Michael
on 11 Aug 14Hey, Joe. It’s not that the company owns the employees’ evenings, it’s that it gives them the official backing to not be responsive during those times. Otherwise, work can creep into off-work hours and it can be hard for some employees to remember they have the right to say no.
It’s like companies that force their employees to take a certain amount of vacation. It’s not that they have the right to make you work all year, it’s that they want to make sure you aren’t somehow guilted into never taking time off.
I agree it’s better if the company is set up so that work just doesn’t creep into the evening, but in the age of computers, that is difficult to do, especially for an established company with colleagues and customers in multiple time zones.
aowebe
on 12 Aug 14This is very useful for me.Can you share with us something more like this. Thanks. Chua vo sinh
Tom
on 12 Aug 14Great article. I think it’s important that you set an expectation with you coworkers that if its not an emergency, you are not going to answer that email until the next morning. Yes, its difficult sometimes to get that through peoples head, but a line has to be drawn somewhere.
This discussion is closed.