Cubicles can be a distraction nightmare due to employee assists and interruptions. Additionally there is no door to close when an employee needs to focus. With productivity in mind, we realized that many of our employees who were in cubicles were wasting their days task switching.
Task switching is "expensive". There has been a lot of research on task switching (Interruption Science) and here is what we know from the research:
- It takes more time to get tasks completed if you switch between them than if you do them one at a time.
- You make more errors when you switch than if you do one task at a time.
- If the tasks are complex then these time and error penalties increase.
- Employees typically spend only 11 minutes on any given project without interruptions.
- Once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task.
- Employees in cubicles are interrupted 29% more often than those in private offices.
- Employees who experienced frequent interruptions reported 9% higher rates of exhaustion, almost as big as the 12% increase in fatigue caused by oversized workloads.
If you have 480 minutes in a workday and you are distracted every 11 minutes, you get distracted 43 times per day (there are studies that find the actual number is closer to 60). Aside from the actual time lost to the interruptions, there is additional recovery time, which negatively affects productivity. Once interrupted, it takes 20-25 minutes to regain the level of focus we had attained prior to the disruption. In addition, close to 50% of the time, we never even get back to our original task, so a 5-minute interruption really costs you 30 minutes of time off task. "The Cost of Not Paying Attention," calculated that workplace interruptions cost the U.S. economy $588 billion a year. If the matter can wait until a more appropriate time, let it.
Solution
Display some item (an hourglass, a hockey puck, a Rubik’s Cube) on your cubicle ledge when you do not want disruptions. It represents your “virtual cubicle door.” Everyone must respect this and you should find the time you need to stay “on-task” without distraction.
Benefits
- Employees will have a virtual door they can close.
- Employee distractions will reduce dramatically.
- Employee morale will increase due to their feeling of control over their environment.
Savings
Estimates say you can save 25% of the employees fully burdened cost of labor.
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