Do Your Hybrid Apps Play Well With Others?
Not long ago, I wrote that the office is not dead. Hybrid work designs and communication technologies are making more flexible work possible, and the physical office is part of that. Top leadership and HR professionals successfully navigated this once-in-a-generation transition with arrangements that make the most of people collaborating on location while including remote workers online.
All of this innovation, however, comes with a hidden speed bump: Companies are introducing so many new applications that employees feel immersed in a multiverse of new software, work requirements, and routines. Hybrid work is so technology-reliant that employees can hardly keep up. Even if they do keep up, remote work technologies layer on a new set of interruptions. With so much to learn, how can leaders get people back up to speed and flowing through their days with greater ease?
Work, interrupted
First, it’s not a matter of telling people to ignore interruptions. Evolution has hard-wired human brains to pay attention to new data. That notification from email or messaging software grabs attention away from the task at hand (the modern equivalent of checking whether that movement in the grass signals something to eat or something that can eat you). As a result, half of users of email or messaging apps check for new input every six minutes.[1] The learning curve of new applications means that every employee experiences some form of “tech onboarding” in which their productivity lags as they synthesize new technology into their workday.
Work technology like email, Slack, and Teams are enabling new ways to work and also making concentrated work more difficult, writes Cal Newport in A World Without Email.[2] It takes about 20 minutes to get fully back on task after an interruption. Even worse, after only 20 minutes of interrupted performance, employees feel stressed, frustrated, and pressured.[3]
We know that collaboration is critical, however, so the question becomes, what interaction with connection technology delivers a positive ROI – both in terms of money spent on tech and the return on “attention investment?” One practical answer is integrating technologies so switching work tasks is less disruptive.
Integration eases the burden of switching
Imagine a productive and well-run meeting, whether virtual or in a conference room. People are focused on one activity – solving a problem, generating new ideas, sharing information, collaborating. For the moment they have put their distracting phones and email aside (I said it was well-run!). They do some mild task-switching, such as sharing a slide deck or writing on a whiteboard, but the switch is minor and familiar.
Now imagine that meeting continuously interrupted by someone knocking, smartphones ringing and pinging, and having the whole group move to a different room where they try to continue using flip charts instead of a whiteboard. How inefficient is that?
That’s what it’s like for a person working with specialized software (coding, budgeting, designing, etc.) while simultaneously using collaboration apps like Microsoft Teams or Slack. Their work is chopped up because their mind must re-orient to a new interface and a different focus as they shift from one task to another. Add onboarding or learning new software at the same time and that employee has a 20-pound interface anchor dragging them down.
Software designers ease the burden of multiple apps by integrating them into common interfaces, so the experience is less one of exiting one application to work in another and more working within a single environment. You’ve probably seen this with tightly knit applications like Microsoft Office, and it’s becoming common to do this across many programs through technical partnerships among companies.
Integrating human connection with workflow
At Workhuman we envision a workplace where a continuous flow of interactions that integrate work tasks with human connections. Learning, collaborating, and communicating appear “in the flow of work,” without interruption.
The human connection happens when people recognize and celebrate one another’s unique contributions publicly, creating what we call “human moments that matter.” It happens when managers spontaneously coach and advise people in online conversations that replicate face-to-face feedback in frequent, organic messages. It’s as if a manager were by an employee’s side, bringing them along, without scheduling an interruption in the workday. This light touch through software integration creates a halo effect of encouragement and human connection into the flow of work. To keep this feeling natural, we’re working to integrate our software with productivity apps from other companies.
When you consider a shiny new application, whether it’s part of necessary process or super-charging productivity, ask, “Does it play well with others?” Integration among your various apps will speed their adoption among the workforce and accelerate productive as it removes some of those speed bumps.
[1] Laura Vanderkam, “’A World Without Email’ Review: The Battle with the Inbox.” The Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2021
[2] https://www.calnewport.com/
[3] Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith, Ulrich Klocke. “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress.” University of California, Irvine, Humbolt University, Berlin Germany.
