Whether we work in a co-located or distributed team, more and more of our work today is carried out online - the digital workspace exists for all of us, regardless of our physical one. However that very digital workspace lives within a unprecedentedly noisy and distracting online environment.
Despite the plethora of tools designed to help us collaborate and connect, today’s knowledge workers face new challenges when it comes to being focused and productive. New research from GoTo by LogMeIn published recently revealed that the 2,000 employees they surveyed face continual distraction and competing demands on their attention, leading to a tendency to multitask at all times - blending personal and work activities on multiple apps and devices.
A lack of consolidation in the workspace?
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Mark Strassman[/caption]
Even within the workspace, a lack of consolidation of apps and agreement about how they should be used to communicate effectively leads to fragmentation and confusion. People work out their own preferences and systems but they don’t necessarily inter-operate well with colleagues, and even when there is a plan it might involve the use of multiple tools and platforms throughout the day to get the work done.
The consequences aren’t hard to predict, and when we caught up with Mark Strassman, SVP and GM, Unified Communications & Collaboration at LogMeIn, he pointed out that mistakes aren’t only embarrassing and inefficient:
“Distracted employees can also pose a real security risk. When staff are dealing with sensitive information, even small lapses in attention can lead to that information being sent to the wrong person or an external party, potentially costing the entire business significant time and resources to prevent the leaked information from doing real harm”.
The research concluded that two factors are critical for the 21st century workplace to overcome these risks, the first of which is consolidating the tools used for collaboration. Getting as much as possible happening within one platform ensures minimal switching time and associated cognitive overhead, as well as avoiding confusion and risk of mistakes. With the explosive proliferation of collaboration tools on the market in recent years it’s not uncommon for app stacks to have evolved in an opportunistic and spontaneous way - so the scheduling of regular reviews should be on the agenda, to prevent duplication, fragmentation and overspending.
