Stop Visual "Noise" from Ruining Your Work

From the Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2017

Why you can't concentrate at your work? Well, there must be quite a range of factors, either relating to your inner self or relating to your work environment. If you, like most of today's working professionals all over the world, are working in an open-plan office, and you are easily affected by the environment, then oftentimes you should blame the distractions that may easily ruin your work.

The most common source of distractions are the disruptive sounds, which most working professionals have long combated. But aside from disruptive sounds, visual "noise", which refers to "the activity or movement around the edges of an employee’s field of vision", can also erode your concentration and hamper your productivity.

Earlier this month, Sue Shellenbarger, creator and writer of the Wall Street Journal's "Work & Family" column, writes about the problem of visual noise at the workplace, pointing out that visual noise could pull employees' eyes away from their desks and disrupt their concentration.

In explaining how visual noise may erode employees' concentration, Sue cited Sabine Kastner's (a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Princeton University) viewpoint that "unpredictable movements around the edges of a person’s field of vision compete for cognitive resources" and thus pull a person's attention away from his or her work. Aside from that, Sue also cited Leigh Stringer's (a senior workplace expert) argument that "being visible to bosses and colleagues can make workers in some jobs feel pressured to conform to others’ expectations" and thus distract their focus.

Sue also mentioned how several companies in the US. have been taking initiatives to deal with visual distractions, such as building "focus rooms" (small rooms with a single desk) or quiet rooms, installing bigger computer screens, and so forth.

For more details, click here to read the full article.

AI and job losses – “Don’t buy into the hype or the fear”

From ABC’s RN Breakfast, May 17, 2017

Experts forecast that within the next ten to fifteen years, more than 40 per cent of Australian jobs will no longer exist. While that could be seen as a cause of much concern, Nicholas Davis, Head of Society and Innovation at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, says it doesn't have to be.

Nicholas believes the benefits of artificial intelligence and robotics should outweigh all the disruption they will cause — so long as it’s done well.

First, the good news – two thirds of the impact will be people’s job changing – jobs will be less dull, less dangerous and less dirty – we’ll be able to do the kind of work that makes us better off and which allows us to use our interpersonal and cognitive skills.

While there are potential downsides - such as job losses and disruption from the acceleration of change - Nicholas believes we can mitigate against them.

Nicholas says we need to think about new policies that will make us better off and empowered by new technology. He says this will involve all of us stepping up – government, industry, unions and civil society.

Public discussion needs to be –

• What kinds of business models do we like and want?

• How do we design systems to make sure people are better off; so they are more engaged and productive and less in fear of change?

• How do we provide social protection and support for people?

Jobs won’t be created in the same sector. For example, today’s truck drivers will retire and not be replaced. So the question we need to ask is what skills do future generations need? And corporations need to ask how do we re-skill better?

We need to focus on human centred design, and not see people as economic units. We need to look at the kind of work we do, day in and day out, which benefits the wider community (e.g. social care) that isn’t seen as work today. Policy discussion needs to focus on how do we expand on that, so that as technology gives us more time, we use that time to add value back to the broader community?

Nicholas believes governments need to explore universal basic income and other ways to support people so they feel safe and deal with the uncertainty of change.

So by preparing and making good decisions today, we don’t need to be fearful of AI and robotics – as Nicholas says, “don’t buy into the hype or the fear”.

Click here to hear the full interview.

Working on work design in Canberra

On the invitation of the ACT Branch of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, Sharon presented to executives in Canberra this week, on the topic of “Transformative Outcomes Through Innovative Work Practices”. Participants came from a diverse range of organisations, such as ambulance services, small business association, and the health sector.

Together with Dr Kirsten Way from the Centre for Sustainable HRM and Wellbeing, Sharon then ran a full-day workshop with professionals and senior managers on work design. Topics covered include what constitutes good work design from a psychosocial perspective, why does it matter, examples of innovative work redesigns, and "how" to redesign work.

As part of the workshop, Florian ran the icecream making activity (see earlier blog), which participants agreed was a terrific way to understand the importance of good work design, and especially having autonomy in one’s job.

The workshop was a great opportunity for participants to share stories about good and poor work redesigns. It appears there are many more examples of the latter, with organisational restructuring often being implemented with minimal participation of staff, a focus on short-term cost cutting only, and a lack of systems thinking. Unsurprisingly the results tended to be fairly dire for job quality and productivity.

#JobDesign