Turn Off the Phone! Interruptions & Work Quality
Multi-tasking has become almost of badge of honor and expected “skill” in the workplace. Workers everywhere are expected to juggle multiple projects, priorities and unplanned demands over the course of the workday. It’s not uncommon for workers to be interrupted several times per hour. But do interruptions effect job performance—the quality of work? A new study published online by Human Factors focused on finding out the impact of ongoing interruptions on the quality of work.
It’s important to point out that several studies have been conducted the effects of interruption on time and errors. In general, the more interruptions the greater the errors and the longer time it takes to complete a task. Time and errors are important to know but don’t apply to every work task, especially those that involve reading, comprehension and writing. This study wanted to look at the impact of interruptions on work quality for reading and writing. They selected a task that frequently occurs in offices around the world—outlining and writing an essay—with multiple interruptions.
They looked at 3 different conditions: 1) interruptions occurred while participants were outlining, 2) interruptions occurred while they were writing, and 3) the control group with no interruptions.
Results:
Significantly lower quality essays were completed by the participants who were interrupted during the outline and writing phases than in essays of those who were not interrupted. In addition, those participants who were interrupted during the writing phase wrote considerably fewer words.
Conclusion:
Workers today are almost proud of multi-tasking. They feel that they can do so with no impact on the tasks they are performing (think of how many of us talk or text and drive!). This study, along with many others, shows that is not the case. Interruptions can cause a noticeable decrease in the quality of work. Employers would be wise to take steps to reduce the number of external interruptions workers daily.