More productive to break?
Studies show that at work we have become 80% more productive than we were in 1969. What have we had to sacrifice for this productivity? The answer is simple: time. The question is, do we want to sacrifice more time? What can we humans do to continue to be more productive without breaking down? And how are we going to keep our employees in this? On the one hand, we can use digital tools that can facilitate our tasks – so we can focus on other things – but there is something more we can do. A study from HEC University in Paris wanted to see what happened if you cut your working hours by 15 minutes and spent that time reflecting in writing instead. Productivity and delivery increased by 23%! The reflection turned out to create commitment and control. Reflection leads to learning and that we become more innovative in solving any problems. Which takes us forward. More and more top managers are highlighting reflection time in their organizations and achieving fantastic results.
Jan-Åke Eriksson works as business area manager at Länsförsäkringar Bergslagen. He has chosen to let his employees reflect in Mentor, which means that he also gets to read his employees' reflections and can give feedback on these. He sees the reflections of his employees as an opportunity to be a better and more present manager. "Through the reflections of my co-workers, even if I am not physically in place where they are, I get a good picture of their week and what they have to focus on right now. I can pick up things they're concerned about and easily confirm them in their efforts...," he said.
Gallup has conducted a survey showing that an average of 13% of employees are engaged in their work. This should be seen as socially unhealthy as disengaged employees are more likely to be sickened due to stress. Then why don't we put systems in place to reflect when we know it's so good? Could it be because we don't know how to measure reflection? For what we can measure, such as employee indices, we are very happy about.
We know, among other things, that reflection:
- makes us more productive and reduces the feeling of stress.
- make the individual take more responsibility.
- gives more money on the last line.
What is it that makes more organizations not give their employees reflection time? Is it a fear of losing production time? Is it a question of the energy of organizations? Is the manager afraid of employees' thoughts? Or is it because, as mentioned above, we do not know how to measure the result?
What we can measure is the hard numbers that disengagement directly generates: A company with 1000 employees where you have a total wage cost of SEK 700 million loses an average of SEK 354 million each year due to disengagement(source),while a burned-out employee costs organizations SEK 400,000 a year only in loss of production(source). When an employee decides to change jobs, it costs an average of SEK 550,000(source). These are costs that can be directly avoided if smaller efforts are made to increase the engagement of existing staff and at the same time minimize the willingness for them to move forward.
What if you could measure the result on reflection? Siv Carrass works as a preschool manager and has 30 employees under her. No day is the same and to be able to see and hear everyone is difficult. "Through the reflection, I feel that I have a different relationship with my co-workers, a better relationship. The reflection log lifts things that have otherwise passed by and creates material for the physical meeting. Mentor feeds and gives birth to the personal meeting. It's liberating to bring out the word cloud on Monday morning," she said.
Are you one of those who have realized the benefit of reflecting or are you among those who haven't understood the point yet?