Be productive at work: socialize between tasks

William Atkins
Tuesday, 01 July 2008 03:26

Science - Biology

MIT researchers found that employees that socialize with one another between tasks are more productive than those that socialize during tasks and those employees that don’t socialize at any time.


Benjamin Waber, of the Cambridge-Massachusetts-based MIT Media Lab, and his U.S. team of researchers used electronic monitoring devices to classify various employee interactions at work These interactions were then used to access the productivity of that work.

In all, twenty-three employees from a Chicago, Illinois-based information technology (IT) company were used as subjects. The employees’ jobs were to design server systems.

Each employee wore a badge that indicated when that person talked during work, whom they were talking with, and when that person was moving about (talking at the water cooler or coffee machine, or traveling to a meeting) versus when the employee was staying in one place (say, at a desk).

Over a four-week period, the researchers collected data on 911 specific jobs that the employees performed over 1,900 man-hours.

Each of the specific jobs were broken down to time spent at each job, the amount of details involving each job, and other facets of the job that helped to determine the amount of work actually accomplished.

Waber states, "People have formal structures and reporting relationships, but when you look at who's actually talking to each other you get a different picture. We can predict productivity far more accurately from these informal structures and behaviours."

What did Waber find? Please read on.