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Sidetracked

Did you know that the vast majority of your employees are distracted more than two hours every day? They are distracted for an average 2 hours a day and that's a quarter of a day's work. Part of this two-hour distraction can be credited to stuff like e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, IMs, Skype, cellular phones, et cetera. However, they are not entirely to blame for this. In fact, it's due to technology like this that your company can function the way it can. We're not saying though that your workers aren't using technology for non-productive stuff, we're just saying that you can't eliminate technology in order to free them from distracting themselves.

Distractions Rooting From Conversations

As technology plays a minor part in having their attentions diverted, what's the other cause of the problem? Actually, it is conversations that get them sidetracked the most. Either it's chatting with co-workers, sharing gossips, people who talk too loud - they're all getting them sidetracked. The thing is, it's really not easy for you to have them avoid these conversations. What's more is those who are trying to do their jobs are also distracted because of the noise of these conversations. It's no wonder that there are employees who request for solo work time. Because, this seems to be the only way to get away from the noise and work efficiently. Actually, this is a pretty good idea.

How is this distraction-free solo work given?

What some companies do is they offer their conference rooms and mandate that employees turn their gadgets to silent mode or completely shut off. An alternative to this is sound masking. What sound masking means is that you produce low-level white noise via office speakers in the ceiling and it will be enough to mask unwanted and distracting noise. Sound masked offices have been reported to increase employees' productivity and efficiency.