Transforming Unproductive Communication with AI
In today’s digital age, workers face an ever-increasing amount of non-stop distractions from communication channels. With an overload of emails, Slack messages, and text notifications, we are constantly being bombarded with information. This struggle to keep up with always-on data, information, and communications is a challenge that employees worldwide are grappling with.
According to a Microsoft relationship, workers around the world are finding it difficult to keep up with the constant flow of information. Studies have shown that 57% of the working day is spent on communications, including emails, meetings, and non-stop pings from instant messaging platforms. Unfortunately, it leaves only 43% of their time for productive creation. With this daunting loss of production, individuals and organizations need to take action to improve communication and workflow.
Setting Up Communication Guidelines for Teams
One way that organizations can improve communication is by setting up specific guidelines for when to use email, Slack, or other communication platforms. GitLab, a European software company, is an inspiration in this area. The company has established detailed guidelines about how to communicate and when to use each communication tool for different tasks. GitLab has had to do this out of necessity, as the company had to bring together a massive remote workforce. Still, businesses of all sizes can implement these guidelines to ensure smooth communication flow.
Rather than simply filtering emails, blocking subscriptions, and putting a stop to notifications, companies need to take a deeper dive into the communication tools that they adopt. Layering communication technologies without considering their impact on employee productivity and energy is not a solution. Organizations need to evaluate the tools available to determine which ones work better for their teams and for different types of jobs.
Balancing Communication with Productive Creativity
Microsoft, a large investor in AI, believes that AI can solve the communication overload problem. The tech giant posits that AI can help free up employees’ time from hard work and allow them to spend more time on productive creativity. While AI can help, organizations need to consider a broad range of measures to improve employee productivity and maximize the value of communication channels. The ideal solution is balancing communication with creativity to achieve a productive work-life balance that enhances both the individual’s and the company’s overall wellbeing.
Steps to Improve Communication and Workflow
While organizations may not eliminate communication overload overnight, they can adopt measures aimed at restoring work-life balance.
1. Establish Clear Communication Channels- Defining clearly the different channels used for communication ascertains what tools are available for employees to communicate as a company. Clear communication channels give room for easier problem-solving and an increase in team communications.
2. Set Communication Guidelines- Setting communication guidelines will align communication processes within different teams. This will streamline the way employees work and prevent confusion, increased productivity, and clarity across all levels of communicating individuals will ensue.
3. Choose the Right Communication Platform- Rather than all communication tools, it is better to select the best communication tools that will enable efficient communication between members of the company.
4. Encourage Communication Outside of Work- Communication outside work helps to foster relationships between co-workers without stressing about work. It helps to boost camaraderie as well as to help members of the company understand each other better.
5. Limit After-Hours Communication- When employees are off the clock, it is essential to limit communication by implementing technology such as email tracking and automatic assistants. Ensuring employees have a proper work-life balance is essential for overall productivity.
6. Eliminate Communication Overload- Since communication overload is a problem for most organizations, it is important to determine the root cause of the problem. Reducing the number of messages sent, using automation, or having an automated messaging system can help ensure that important messages aren’t lost in the clutter, and that employees aren’t drowning in a sea of unimportant messages.
Conclusion
Companies can improve employee productivity by implementing communication guidelines, choosing the right communication platforms, and fostering communication both inside and outside of work hours. These steps can help boost camaraderie, streamline communication, and reduce communication overload, leading to higher employee productivity, satisfaction and overall growth.
According to studies, Americans could be checking their email as much as three hours per day. While a certain amount of communication is necessary for employees to work together effectively, too much communication can have the opposite effect. Organizations must strike at the sweet spot where communication is effective, and productive creation is still the focus.
Summary
Effective communication is key to achieving productivity in the workplace. With the influx of communication channels, companies are struggling to keep up with employee communication, leading to information overload, stress, and reduced productivity. Companies should focus on setting communication guidelines, choosing the right communication platforms, and fostering communication both inside and outside of work hours. These measures can help improve team collaboration, reduce communication overload, and increase employee productivity.
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When it comes to office tedium, I thought there was little left to say about the Internet’s immortal, draining beetle that is work email.
I found out last week that there was, when a friend at work told me how excited her 10-year-old was to have his first email account.
“He gets incredibly excited every time new mail arrives in his inbox,” she said. Most of it came from her or her teacher, but he counted them as they arrived and had just announced he had a whole 175.
As I absorbed the poignant thought of how soon his joy would turn to dread at the inbox overload, my friend said, “Guess how many emails I have. Not read.”
“100,000?” I said, of course she would get less than my 120,000. “No,” she said. “300,000”. When I told a colleague at work, she said it was nothing because she had over 500,000. Assuming that journalists were particularly at risk of being flooded, I asked an investor I saw the next day how many unread emails he had. “More than 400,000,” he said, wincing.
Like all of us, he had given up fighting an incessant digital bombardment. As a senior member of her company, she was copied into endless internal slag, while unwanted external bilge came from all types of salesmen, promoters and pitchers.
When I mentioned this to another colleague last week, he said he was thinking of doing something I myself had considered: setting up a permanent out-of-office message to warn that due to the flood of emails I might not answer shortly.
And that’s just emails, of which US workers were checking more than Three hours a day in 2019. Add in nonstop pings from Slack, Teams, G-chat, or WhatsApp, and it’s a wonder anyone ever did anything of importance.
Some texting is obviously necessary, as are some of the online meetings and calls that have increased since the pandemic began. But we’ve gotten to the point where the benefits of communication are being outweighed by a daunting loss of production.
This has been confirmed by a Microsoft relationship last month that it found that workers around the world are struggling to keep up with an “always-on data, information and communications crush.”
Research has shown that people spend 57% of their working day on emails, meetings and other communications, but only 43% on productive creation.
According to Microsoft, a large investor in generative AI, the solution to this dilemma is, incredibly, AI. The tech giant says AI will free stressed employees from time-wasting hard work and unleash their creativity.
Perhaps. But it will take much more.
For starters, employees need to stop thinking that ruthless “productivity hack” advice will help. You can filter email, block subscriptions, and stop notifications all you want, but it will never solve your overload problem because you aren’t the one causing it.
Rather, it results from organizations adopting layer after layer of communication technologies without thinking about how this affects their larger goals or the productivity and mental energy of their employees.
I have come across very few companies like GitLab, a software company with details guidelines about when to use email, Slack, or something else for various tasks.
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He did this out of necessity: he had long had to gather a large remote workforce. But his efforts to avoid what he calls “the chaotic breakdown of communication” that bedevils larger organizations apply widely.
It’s encouraging to see a company like Germany’s VW attempting measures like cutting off access to emails outside normal business hours, even if they’re difficult to implement in practice.
I also like the step by the German automotive group Daimler to allow employees to use the settings automatically eliminate incoming emails while on vacation. The spread of right to disconnect Policies that limit after-hours business contact are also welcome.
But it’s the way we work on schedules that needs attention. Until this is resolved, we are doomed to endure office life which will always be an oppressive and frustrating shadow of what it could be.
https://www.ft.com/content/48a97506-f502-4d17-8be2-6ee532236268
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