Improving Digital Workplace Wellbeing

2020 has been the year in which the majority of the workforce transitioned to a remote and digital work environment. We’ve learned how to work remotely with support from all the online tools available to us today. Since this is all so very new to so many people, there are difficulties that some individuals and organisations are struggling to handle.

In today’s episode, we’ll address some of those challenges in a conversation with Chris Flack, co-founder of UnPlug, a behaviour change consultancy with a focus on digital wellbeing. Since 2016, UnPlug has worked with over 60 organisations globally to help staff work smarter in the always-on world by improving digital habits and digital culture. Chris comes from a background of 15 years in tech consulting and behaviour change, he has experienced first hand many of the negative impacts of information overload and witnessed how distraction and an always-on culture has changed the lives of many people.

We discuss topics such as zoom fatigue, distractions in the workplace, and excessive technology usage to understand how they impact performance and wellbeing, as well as what we can do to avoid the negative impact of these.

The Impact of Distractions While Working at Home

Staying productive during working hours has become more difficult since the workplace transitioned to our homes. Chris identifies one of the problems to be the distractions we have now that we didn’t have in an office and that those distractions are now becoming habits, which is decreasing overall productivity. This is what the evidence reflects, he says; “There was a really interesting article in The New Statesman a couple of weeks ago that said, since February, there's been a 300% increase in people searching on Google for how to get your brain to focus”.

An interesting point Chris makes is that distractions also occur in the office. Still, they tend to be much more intense at home and that the best way to deal with this problem is to be aware of our behaviour regarding distractions and put boundaries in place, especially with technology.

Deep Work and Switch Off

One area that has been impacted by the distractions in the workspace is our ability to focus on “deep work”. It is harder to complete a task when we’re interrupted by emails, notifications, or other distractors. So it is essential to be aware of the importance of deep work so we can slowly over time start to manage our time to prioritise deep work. “Quite often at the beginning of our workshops, we ask the question, can any of you remember the last time you had one hour dedicated just to a project and you didn't do anything else? Even just 60 minutes, and it's fascinating, very few people do that”.

Training the mind to be able to switch off from the working mindset can have a significant impact on our wellbeing. Chris proposes a few practices to improve in this regard that include not getting out of bed and going straight to work, but to have a few minutes with yourself before you start working by having a short walk or other activity you enjoy. Preparing your mind for the working day is pretty important too, one example of this might be to use work clothes or something similar to it, so at the end of the day when you change your clothes, it is easier for the mind to switch from the work mindset.

The Misuse of Digital Technology

Digital technologies are still very new for many people, and how they modify our behaviour within the workplace is a fascinating and important topic to discuss. Chris shares a few examples with us. “There's a really interesting piece of research out of Virginia Tech. It's been replicated a number of times now [...] It's called the iPhone study. And what it shows us is that if we have a digital device in our line of sight, even if it's switched off, it will dilute the quality of the conversation and our empathy”.

Another misuse of digital technology is related to communication since tech allows us to be always accessible, and over-communication can generate fatigue for individuals. What Chris proposes as a solution is creating a set of rules at an organisational level “You have to have a No Device Policy. But that's really where it comes to the start of building things like a digital charter. And that would then include things like, from a corporate point of view, certain rules within teams. We're not talking about legislation such as the right to disconnect, but just flexible rules that allow us to have “Do Not Disturb” at certain times, that allow us to actually protect our time when we need to recharge”.

Being Aware of How Much Technology We Use

The term digital detox is now a common search term on Google and as mentioned above, being aware of our behaviour is important to overcome the decrease in productivity because of distractions. Following the line that a lot of the distractors are in fact digital, Chris recommends using tracking tools to see how much time you're spending on certain platforms. This practice will allow you to be more conscious of time management, prioritising what needs more attention and allows us to put necessary boundaries in place.

These tools can be used on digital devices to monitor entertainment activities like how many hours we spend in social media or consuming other types of entertainment. Still, it can also be used to track the activity of the apps we use to work and give us an estimate of how much time we invest in virtual meetings or using other productivity software.

The Workplaces of the Future

To Chris, making people feel safe will be of most importance in the near future. He assures us that a lot of the struggles that people have had with focus is when they have any kind of threat to their safety, then that puts the body into a state of anxiety, and it’s tough to be focused. He also thinks that the return to work will be a blended model of office and remote where we have the flexibility to have less impact on our time, more time with family, less impact on the environment, less global business trips, but still have the flexibility to know that for two to three days a week we will be in a team because that's when we flourish with other humans; when we’re able to be creative and work collaboratively.

You can connect with Chris on LinkedIn or visit the UnPlug website www.unplughq.com