Previous technological upheavals have had huge impacts on productivity. The original industrial revolution turned the way we work on its head, as did Ford’s introduction of the assembly line. The digital age has been widely hailed as a third industrial revolution, but it hasn’t equated to a comparable boost in productivity per worker.
It’s been widely predicted that the next big upheaval, variously referred to as Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution and other similar tags, will once again boost productivity, mainly through the increase in linked AI and automation. For now though, the “productivity paradox” of the digital age remains, and a new survey suggests that information bombardment and “technostress” could be to blame.
Only 11.4% of workers feel highly productive
The Microsoft study quizzed 20,000 European workers from 21 different European nations. Some said that the ways their employers deployed technology hampered their productivity, while others said that a constant stream of emails, notifications, updates and messages actually distracted them from the job in hand. Only just over one in ten (11.4%) of European workers surveyed said that they felt “highly productive.”
"Modern workers have an abundance of technology at their fingertips. But this availability doesn't necessarily translate into impact,” the report said.
It added that “constant connectivity” put pressure on employees to be available at all times of the day and wherever they currently were. Some companies assumed that longer hours and more availability would boost productivity, but the opposite could actually be true.
“Technostress” can hamper productivity
Sir Cary Cooper, a professor of organisational psychology at the Manchester Business School, told the BBC: "It's the unintended consequences you have to think through when you deploy technology. We do not want to throw the technology out because it's very good for communications, but we have not developed good guidelines on what counts as productive use of it.”
"There's a whole field now called 'technostress' in management science," he added.
"Technologies can overload people and make them less productive because they get caught up in it rather than use it to deliver a service or a product."
Organisation’s digital culture key to productivity
It’s clear that access to all the productivity suites in the world will not increase productivity alone, and the study agrees that it’s not necessarily what you have that counts, but what you do with it. Specifically, it refers to the “digital cultures” that existed within businesses and other organisations. This involved the organisations having clear ideas about what they wanted to do with the technology they adopted and providing the training required to allow employees to fulfil these goals.
Many organisations have recognised that having their employees constantly switched to “on” can be counterproductive and have taken steps, such as limiting when they can access emails.
Sir Carey said that email had been recognised as one of the most damaging issues by the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing at Work, which he helped coordinate.
"Productivity comes from creative interchange. It does not come from people sitting in front of machines sending emails,” he said.
