Do you feel like each day at work is a frantic race where you barely have time to catch your breath? Do you have to interrupt each of your meetings only to move on to another one, and your email inbox fills up faster than it empties? Sure, you’re busy, but how well are you performing?
In a recent article published in the Harvard Business Review, psychologist and Kellogg School of Management professor Adam Waytz argues that workers are increasingly short on time. There are several reasons for this, one of which is a corporate culture that often values being busy.
Indeed, there seems to be, in organizations and even in North American society in general, a certain cult around being busy at work. Several articles have been written on this subject in recent years about the “cult of busyness”.
Two problems arise from this phenomenon according to Adam Waytz. The first is that it has been shown that a company that overloads its employees and rewards them on the basis of their workload generates negative consequences on their mental and physical health.
The second is that it is very difficult to reverse this culture. First, both companies and employees value work that seems to require a high level of effort. Even customers are likely to place more value on work that they can estimate as effortful. In an experiment conducted by Professor Ryan W. Buell, customers in a cafeteria were more satisfied when their sandwich was made in front of them compared to a pre-made sandwich.
The difficulty in reversing this trend may also be explained by idleness aversion, a principle that people are happier when they are busy. Therefore, in a work context, many people will seek to fill the few empty periods they have in a day (periods that can be very productive, especially for creative work) with some kind of task.
How can we reverse this trend?
While it may be difficult, it is possible to turn around an organization that gives too much credit to being busy. Annie Boilard is President of the Annie HR Network, a speaker and trainer in leadership, management and communication. She, too, sees the value placed on being busy at work and the negative consequences that can result. We asked her how this trend could be reversed.
She first mentions that it is important to value and evaluate your employees on the purpose of their work, and to detach yourself from the “how” it is done.
She also advises to pay attention to the vocabulary you use with your colleagues.
Personally, I never say that I was too busy to do something,” says Annie Boilard. Instead, I’ll say that I didn’t take the time to do it or that it wasn’t a priority.”
The trainer and speaker also cautions against over-quality:
Sometimes we overdo it. We spend time doing tasks that weren’t even requested by the client, simply because, from our perspective, we think it’s better that way.”
To reverse this culture of busy-ness, Adam Waytz suggests conducting audits to separate value-added tasks from those that are simply time-consuming. He also suggests limiting multitasking. It has been shown time and time again that multitasking is detrimental to productivity.
So it’s not easy to tackle a culture that values being busy too much. However, addressing it can have a significant impact on employee morale and health, as well as on an organization’s performance. As Annie Boilard reminds us, we cannot be fully effective if we are constantly overloaded and in a hurry.
