Monday, January 30, 2012

just a little out of focus

 “Tell us about the culture of distraction in your company”.  This is one of the things we like to ask our clients when they think about having people work remotely; and it usually perplexes them.  The intent of our question is to uncover how focused people can be when they come into the office, because then we can demonstrate the least appreciated aspect of the virtual model.  Predictably, the answer is normally something like “oh, our team is very focused, you have no idea”.  But are they really?  Are you? 

 

If you work in a traditional office environment, think about your workplace for moment.  What interrupts your ability to focus on accomplishing things?  How often do people interrupt your work by dropping by for “a real quick question”?  How likely are you to be summoned to someone else’s office “for a moment”?  How many meetings must you attend?  Do they start on time?  Are they really necessary?  And thinking about your personal habits: Do you keep e-mail open all the time?  If so, how often do you react when the new mail notification window pops-in, taking you away from the task you were on?  Does your office use chat or IM?  How frequently does it go off?  How rapidly are you expected to respond to notes, texts, or chats?  These are cultural factors of being in an office environment that most businesses turn a blind eye toward in the name of “responsiveness”, but they really diminish the focus. 

 

They are also conditions mitigated by working from home or working remotely.  Studies abound that show people working remotely are more productive than in an office environment.  Strangely enough, they usually cite things like time spent getting ready for work, time spent commuting, or other obvious things to make the case.  What they don’t typically discuss is focus; or the culture of distraction.  Therefore, we like to talk about it.  While managing e-mail notifications, internet peeks, chat sessions and text messages are up to the individual, we find that there is more than ample time each day for those things when the worker doesn’t have to contend with the time lost to the many pop-ins, the meeting assembly time, the hovering outside the boss’s office waiting, the phone ringing, the fire drills, or countless other things that ruin productive focus.  So think about your company’s culture of distraction.  Tell us about it on our sister company’s forum page: http://myvirtualwirks.com/community/viewthread/22/.  And focus on fixing it through virtual work.