In the workplace, distractions and other psychological phenomena that cut into workers’ productivity thrive because the human mind is open to all sorts of influences.
Team members may experience exhausting psychological consequences from time to time due to the presence of dozens of personality types and all the fallout that comes with seniority and hierarchy.
This manual will outline the most common psychological phenomena found in the business world and provide advice on how to mitigate their negative effects on team performance.
1. Specification of the Ziegnarik Effect:
The Ziegnarik Effect demonstrates that unfinished tasks are more easily remembered than finished ones.
Signs and Symptoms
Long periods of concentration on a single job reduce the likelihood that a team member will remember what they learned.
If a team member works on a report for an hour and a half straight without any pauses or changes in context and is then asked to present those findings at a meeting, it’s likely that they may forget key details and figures when asked to recall them.
The Ziegnarik Effect shows itself in various worrisome ways, such as the nagging thoughts that arise from leaving work undone. If you’re directing your team from one work to the next at high velocity, some of those tasks may go by the wayside, increasing the likelihood that your team members may become distracted.
As a result, team members may experience a dip in output as they strive to wrap up any loose ends or complete minor tasks that have been sitting in their inboxes.
A team member’s risk of burnout increases if they begin each day feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work they have to complete.
Solutions to The Problem:
To reduce the Ziegnarik Effect and boost workers’ memory, frequently schedule 5-minute breaks throughout lengthy projects.
As an added bonus, the Ziegnarik Effect can be used to increase output from your team’s members. Make it a rule that before diving into a major project, team members must reflect on it for at least five minutes. In this way, you can effectively counteract the procrastination problem that plagues so many workplaces.
In order to avoid being bogged down in the details of one’s work because of distracting ideas, it is recommended to schedule time during the workday for team members to complete any unfinished tasks. And the next time you ask them to do some serious work, they’ll be ready to give it to you, all yours.
2. A Ego Depletion
The concept of ego depletion proposes that one’s ability to exercise self-control is proportional to the size of one’s personal supply of mental energy; once depleted, one is more prone to give in to destructive patterns of behavior.
Symptoms:
An empty sense of self leads people to avoid their responsibilities at work in whatever way they can. Anything that distracts you from your work, such as going to the bathroom frequently, checking Facebook every 15 minutes, etc.
Believing in the reality of ego depletion can contribute to burnout in the workplace since it creates the impression that one’s motivation to work is limited.
Solutions to The Problem
The best defense against ego depletion is a firm belief that it does not exist because only true beliefs can have negative psychological effects. As an illustration, you could refer your team to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which systematically disproves the idea that human beings have a finite amount of willpower.
Get the word out that everyone experiences a lack of desire from time to time; nevertheless, this is not an excuse to give up. To get more out of your team members, it may help to have a conversation about the underlying causes of their procrastination.
3. Cost of Changing
When you transition from one app or task to another during multitasking, you incur a loss of concentration, known as the switching cost effect.
Symptoms:
The switching cost effect is something we can all relate to, occurring every time we transfer from one task to another.
You’re in a mental limbo where you can’t quite go on to the next thing because you haven’t finished the last one yet. As a result, even while you’re actively working on something new, your mind is continuously processing the preceding activity.
Symptoms of this psychological condition include the inability to concentrate, mental weariness, and lack of drive.
Solutions to The Problem
Preventing the switching cost impact can be done by encouraging priority. Assuming your staff is well-organized, they shouldn’t have to juggle between projects at the last minute.
To ensure that team members aren’t constantly interrupted by messages and notifications, it’s helpful to implement ‘do not disturb’ intervals in group chat apps like Slack.
4. Decision Fatigue
The state of mind that results from having to make too many choices in a short period of time.
Symptoms:
While decision fatigue’s manifestations may differ from person to person, they always share a common characteristic: a decline in cognitive functioning.
Fatigue from making choices impairs judgment, making it easier to rationalize negative behaviors like poor diet and procrastination that can lead to exhaustion and burnout. Making hasty, ill-considered choices is another side effect of decision fatigue.
Solutions to The Problem:
Avoiding decision fatigue can be accomplished in part by just deciding something. You may establish this mindset in your team members so that they are more likely to make a quick decision when faced with a number of seemingly equivalent alternatives.
The truth is that unless your employees are in a position of senior management, many of the major decisions they will be required to make throughout the day won’t require considerable analysis.
For your team’s benefit, I offer the following proverb:
The pursuit of perfection stymies development.
5. Social Loafing
When working in a group, “social loafing” occurs when people don’t put in their own effort.
Symptoms:
Each of us has experienced working in a group, whether at school or in the workplace, where the atmosphere is casual, and conversations drift away from the task at hand.
Once a group is formed, there is a strong temptation to start chit-chatting and becoming more relaxed, possibly in the mistaken belief that someone else would take care of the task.
When people are forced to work together, social loafing reduces productivity and harms the final product.
Solutions to The Problem:
It’s crucial to establish ground rules from the get-go to prevent social loafing, which can have a negative impact on your team’s output. It’s important to lay up a method for teamwork so that no one can daydream or ignore their responsibilities. Tracking employee progress over time can be done with the use of a wfh monitoring system.
Creating to-do lists and delegating specific tasks is one method for keeping teams on track and monitoring their progress.
6. Case of Amnesia
Due to the monotony of most meetings, it’s easy to forget what was discussed.
Symptoms:
Team members that suffer from meeting amnesia may find it difficult to move forward with their work since they will feel like nothing was resolved at the meeting. It’s hard for them to move forward since meetings run into each other without breaks.
Solutions to The Problem:
The best way to prevent people from forgetting what was discussed at a meeting is to take actionable meeting notes and distribute them to everyone afterward.
Quick, concise debrief can help you see if your team is retaining material from meetings.
Trends in Workplace Productivity Are Easier to Detect with Monitoring Software
Technology that monitors employee internet use can help you tell if and when a member of your team is experiencing any of the psychological issues discussed in this manual.
Tracking employee performance at both the individual and team levels allows for a more thorough understanding of the successes and failures of various initiatives.
Tracking one’s progress toward goals—what is that?
Simply put, it’s the process of keeping tabs on workers in order to get a sense of their production or productivity throughout a given time frame. To improve productivity, you can use data like employee hours worked in conjunction with workforce optimization software.
Here’s how you may track productivity changes with the use of remote desktop monitoring and Employee Monitor Software:
- How much time employees spend in front of the computer may be monitored using the app’s “idle time” feature.
- The app can also be used to monitor employee performance over time with its “real-time insights” section.
- Have a look at how much time workers spend in various apps by using a monitoring tool for the internet.
