Productivity | Nones Notes

I’ve been in business long enough that I can remember a time when it was pretty commonplace for the radio to be playing in the background in offices and other work settings. Sometimes the result of doing so was a bit distracting – most especially during radio program commercial breaks, but also the general distraction of hearing the radio announcers.

These days, the only workplace where I hear the radio playing is at the office of my dentist. Perhaps they think their patients don’t have any choice but to sit captive in the operatory chair, so it doesn’t matter if the “irritation quotient” is high or not.

On the other hand, one of the things workers can do today is craft their own streaming-service playlists, filled with the kind of music that they prefer to hear. And with so many people working from home in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s little surprise that playlists have become increasingly popular.

One question we might ask is if the music we listen to while working helps with our productivity, or hinders it.

It’s a topic that’s of interest to companies such as OnBuy. This UK-based online marketplace has conducted a study of ~3,000 people, enlisting them to complete ten short tasks with music playing in the background to find out how many of the tasks they could complete when various different songs were playing.

The research subjects worked their tasks while hearing a range of different songs – and as it turns out, there were significant differences in productivity based on the songs that were playing.

According to the OnBuy study, the most productive music to work or study by were these five songs:

My Love (Sia)
Real Love (Tom Odell)
I Wanna Be Yours (Arctic Monkey)
Secret Garden (Bruce Springsteen)
Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Bobbie McFerrin)

Don’t Worry, Be Productive: Bobby McFerrin

The research participants were able to complete an average of six of the ten assigned tasks within the duration of those five songs.

At the other end of the scale, these songs were determined to be poor for productivity, with participants able to complete just two of the assigned tasks, on average, while they were playing:

Dancing With Myself (Billy Idol)
Roar (Katy Perry)

The Pointer Sisters: Everyone’s excited, but productivity takes a beating.

And at the bottom of the barrel? Of the songs tested, I’m So Excited by the Pointer Sisters was the worst one for productivity.

More generally, the OnBuy study discovered an inverse correlation between a song’s beats per minute (BPM) and productivity levels: The higher the BPM, the less productive people were in completing their assigned tasks.

This is probably why I’m much more productive when listening to music that has practically no BPM associated with it – whether it’s the ambient music of Brian Eno, piano preludes by Claude Debussy, or the nature music of Frederick Delius.

Of course, when it comes to work productivity, nothing beats complete silence. That’s the surefire way to be the most productive – but it isn’t nearly as nice, is it?

How about you? What kind of music appeals to you — and works for you — while working? Please share your thoughts with other readers here.

In the early years of the Internet, companies worried about the loss of productivity if employees were tempted to surf online in amongst their work duties. There was also the issue of the “appropriateness” of the web content being viewed. In response, various web tracking capabilities were introduced that enable companies to monitor online activities on networked computers.

On the other hand, as the Internet became all-pervasive in daily life, many companies also adopted a policy of allowing a modest amount of web surfing during work breaks to allow employees to conduct personal business such as shopping and bill-paying.

Now, with the rise of social media, the whole issue has been brought to the fore once again. The proliferation of Facebook accounts in particular has resulted in a new spike of personal online activities at work. A recent study by Nucleus Research bears it out. Based on study findings, Nucleus deduces that companies allowing employee access to Facebook lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity. And in an era of cutthroat competition globally, 1.5% of productivity is no slouch amount.

To reach this conclusion, Nucleus Research found that slightly more than three-fourths of the employees surveyed have a Facebook account. Of those who do, nearly two-thirds admitted to accessing their account during working hours.

The average amount of time spent per day on Facebook on office time is about 15 minutes – although the study uncovered a few employees who spent upwards of two hours daily during work hours. (Shame on those employees … but shame on their employers, too, for being so utterly clueless about those employees’ behavior!)

Of course, some people’s activities on Facebook have a business purpose, don’t they? Well … it is true that some employees manage “fan” pages for their company as an adjunct of their personal Facebook account. But that shouldn’t represent more than a small portion of any firm’s workers – perhaps those in the marketing, sales, HR or shareholder relations departments.

And the Nucleus Research study findings reflect this as well, because nearly 90% of the respondents who access Facebook at work could not articulate a business justification for doing so.

Perhaps the study’s most surprising finding was the ~5% of respondents who never access Facebook anywhere but at work. What this may mean is that they built their entire Facebook profile on work-time as well. Chalk up some more wasted hours!

The Nucleus Research findings demonstrate that as time progresses and various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter become even more pervasive communications tools for people at all levels in the organization, the old guidelines for balancing work and personal life must continue to evolve.

The kneejerk reaction is to simply block access to Facebook on all office computers. But there will always be some employees who have a legitimate business reason to be on Facebook. And then there are the the ever-growing ranks of telecommuters working offsite, who surely have access to alternate laptops or PDAs even if their company-issued equipment blocks access.

As is usually the case with situations like this, the easiest fix is sometimes not the best one. And at the end of the day, “big brotherism” could reduce employee morale even further — hardly the result one would hope for in the current difficult business climate where “improving company morale” is far more just an abstract concept in an HR textbook.