Managing incoming workload is critical, but it shouldn’t take over the actual work. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
“Fiendishly simple” tweaks to day-to-day workplace processes might be the key to unlocking major efficiency and satisfaction gains for workers, and avoiding employee psychosocial hazards.
Productivity experts say many employees have the skills and tools needed to achieve deliverables, but form habits in business-as-usual processes and tasks that hamper productivity.
Tim D’Arcy, CEO of PEPWorldwide, says it’s not necessarily our fault.
“Nobody really teaches you how to work,” he says.
“It’s not a question of intelligence or capability. Many people have highly technical expertise but not necessarily the fundamental/foundational skills to take control of all aspects of their knowledge in a worker role.
“There’s often an assumption that productivity skills are something you either already have or will develop on your own. But good work habits aren’t always innate – they’re learned.”
For 30 years PEPworldwide has specialised in boosting business performance in the public and private sectors, teaching workers how to improve workplace efficiency through customised, practical solutions and programs designed to enhance productivity and employee engagement.
Over that time as technology has evolved, the way many workers manage their workflows has not kept pace. Email management is a prime example.
“The trouble is, there’s no real way to understand the complexity, scope, volume of work or demands on your time if you’re leading with your inbox,” Tim says.
“People tend to scan emails without making good decisions about what to do with them and lose sight of their workflow.
“Research has shown that once an email gets below the bottom of your screen, typically we come back to only one in six. So because we’re not efficiently processing emails, we’re now in an interruptive loop, getting chased up instead of getting on with work.”
Tim says it’s been shown that if someone interrupts you when you’re in the zone, it takes 21 minutes for you to get back into that flow state.
“So a few interruptions can quickly add up to an enormous efficiency loss,” he says.
“Moreover, if you get 300 emails a day and you’re spending two to five minutes on each, all you’re doing all day is answering emails.”
PEPworldwide CEO Tim D’Arcy says simple workflow management structures can be the game changer you never knew you needed. Photo: PEPworldwide.
For most, the inbox is one of potentially more than a dozen potential feeds for work flowing in and out – via the various instant messages platforms, social media apps, phones and even good old-fashioned shoulder tap.
Critical as it is to manage this constant flow of work, Tim says answering and organising it is not “actually doing the work”.
Fortunately there are effective ways to sort through the noise, creating an environment where we can easily focus on our most important work. In fact, PEPworldwide’s bread and butter is a hands-on program that finds “simple solutions to calm the chaos”.
Its experts coach staff one-on-one in the real work environment to create the time and space to inspect current work processes. This shadowing provides the tools and principles and puts structures in place to help the staff member gain control as the learning is put into practice.
“There’s a difference between a training program and helping people build structures to support behavioural change. When we develop more effective behaviours, they become habits,” Tim says.
“Establishing homes for all your information and processes, so we can quickly put things where they belong, saves an enormous amount of time in the long run.
“The measures are all fiendishly simple – there is nothing complicated about what we do. But whether it’s because you haven’t had the time, or nobody has shown you how, you just don’t do it. You can end up with habits that lead to multiple handling work or dropping the ball entirely.”
A lack of simple workflow management structures and laser sharp focus on key deliverables can create a “chain of consequences” feeding into workplace psychosocial hazards such as high job demands, low job control and lack of role clarity.
“If we can’t get our work done, it follows us home, increasing the impact of psychosocial hazards – something Australian organisations are legally required to take steps to eliminate or at least actively reduce,” Tim says.
The vast majority of PEPworldwide clients walk away with tools that make a significant difference to workflow and efficiency, and subsequently, more balance and improved wellbeing, he says. For many, it’s a game changer.
“I remember this man who was a couple of years away from retirement and at the end of our program, he said ‘I wish someone had shown me this years ago, it would have made life so much easier’.
“We all want a balanced workforce, one that’s achieving its goals in the workplace, but empowered to be present outside of it. We’re all about helping people stay upright and flourishing rather than falling over from stress.”
For more information, contact PEPworld.
