Cracking the CrackBerry
DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University
Forget drugs, gambling or alcohol. What about mobile device addiction? Nick Bontis says the rationale is obvious for his research into this issue: “Everyone knows the ‘CrackBerry’ is now tethered to everybody’s belt buckle.” The issue, he says, is what this is doing to work/family balance and ultimately to overall productivity.
His research survey asked participants to register agreement/disagreement with statements such as: When I am not checking my mobile e-mail I often feel agitated; and, I sometimes neglect important things because of my interest in my mobile.
What he’s found indicates that Canadian office workers are on their devices virtually “all the time.” He adds: “It was the first thing they touched when they got up in the morning, and the last thing they touched at night.” This, he notes, “increases the user's anxiety level and it lasts into family life at night. Before it would have waited until the person got into their office.”
It’s also a problem for businesses. The study found that a person's commitment to an organization decreases as the expected use of mobile devices increases. Over time, the employee resents this, feeling “this is getting bad; it's not what I signed up for in how (mobile device use) is encroaching on my personal time.” What they forget, he says, “is that every single device has an off button.”
One of the study’s surprising findings were that people feel vibrations from their mobile devices even when they’re not on.
Dr. Bontis’ study makes recommendations for employers such as black-out periods (6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and weekends); using the prioritization functions more with half designated as low priorities (FYI only); and using rule wizards to sort e-mails into subject folders.
I’ll get to it in a minute
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
Dr. Piers Steel’s research has been 11 years in the making but it’s not because he’s been procrastinating. In fact, procrastination is the very human behaviour he’s been studying and he’s considered an expert on the subject and its relation to productivity.
“Mainstream economic theories make no place for procrastination,” he says. Yet he calls it “the defining challenge of our times,” made worse by the modern work environment of multiple tasks and new technology.
Procrastination is an emotional response, says Dr. Steel. “People think ‘I should do this’ but then delay irrationally, putting off despite expecting to be worse off. Even when you know better, you don’t always act in your own best interest.”
And it’s not in businesses’ best interests, either, as it affects productivity.
But not everyone procrastinates to the same extent. One of his findings is that women tend to procrastinate slightly less than men, giving them what he calls a not-insignificant advantage in the workplace.
Dr. Steel’s research extends into another productivity-related area: how to match people with jobs that suit them. “When people are in a job they’re not suited for, their performance is poor.”
He’s developed a system called “synthetic validity,” considered a major leap forward in directing people toward jobs at which they would excel, love doing and that are in demand.
Getting the right fit between an employee, job and company they work for has an impact on productivity. Dr. Steel posits that the difference between an average and a good employee match can be quantified as representing $5,000 annually. Multiplied by 13-million workers in Canada, this has a potential productivity gain of $65-billion a year, he says.
“Canada lags in productivity and this is one way we can catch up to and even surpass the U.S.”
Soon, machines might give us insight into procrastination. Dr. Steel is starting to work on research involving MRI brain scans and procrastination.
Welcoming websites
Faculty of Business, Simon Fraser University
Dianne Cyr says her research into e-commerce and responses to website designs sits at the “perfect intersection of information technology, psychology and artistic design.” Before her PhD studies in business, Professor Cyr was a psychologist and she’s been an art collector for 20 years.
