Is Distraction Affecting Your Productivity?

How many of you have a coworker that talks about their favorite football team every Monday during the fall? What about the person who tends to talk loud on their phone?  Do you feel like you are constantly being distracted?  According to the well-known architect and design firm, Gensler, the answer is probably yes.

Last year, Gensler redistributed their 2008 Workplace Survey to analyze differences in the results and identify shifts in workplace trends.   Think back to 2008 for a moment.  The world was in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.  Employment rates were at an all time low. Facebook and Twitter had hardly taken over the social sphere and the iPhone hadn’t even been on the market a full year.  Just as connectivity and communication has changed dramatically in those five years, so did the survey results.

You can see from the bar chart that the amount of the day spent on focus work increased significantly.  It’s important that the space planning of a workplace allows people to concentrate during their focus work time.  At HON Headquarters, there are many small rooms where people can go to focus on their tasks at hand and nearby collaborative spaces where members can have quick conversations.  If members are at their desk working, many use headphones to mask the sounds of conversations going on around them. Focus work that falls vulnerable to interruptions and distractions can greatly decrease a person’s productivity.  Here are some statistics:

What percentage of your day is spent on focus work? What are some distractions you hear or feel in your workplace? And, how exactly do you overcome the distractions?

Increasing Employee Engagement Through Contests & Competitions

Whether you’re an avid basketball fan who knew the starting lineup of every NCAA team, or a novice basketball fan who just caught a game here and there, you most likely noticed that March Madness owned the airwaves over the past few weeks.  If you are still unfamiliar with this annual college basketball sensation, look at your social media platform of choice and you’ll see at least one disparaged fan mention their busted bracket.

The March Madness basketball tournament garners excitement in basketball fans and basketball beginners alike.  There is an opportunity for workplaces to create this same excitement, energy, and competitive spirit with their own contests or competitions.

Try some of these ideas to pump up the energy in your office while adding an element of friendly competition:

• Spring Cleaning Food Drive Contest:  Place co-workers in teams and have a contest on who can bring in the most canned food, clothes, or home goods to donate to a local charity
• Throwback Thursday:  Co-workers wear a throwback clothing item (throwback jersey, band shirt, etc) and the person with the best item wins
• March Madness Inspired Contest: Match team members (or teams) up with each other to create friendly competition.  Instead of points in a basketball game, they advance to the next round by having the higher chosen workplace performance metric.   For example: Your Customer Support team could be based on the number of customer touchpoints, your sales team could have the number of sales calls, etc.

March Madness creates a contagious energy where millions of people are completely engaged in an athletic event.  Athletes perform some of the best games of their careers because of the high-energy atmosphere, cheers and fan support.  Our workplaces can also perform exceedingly well by increasing the energy and engagement of employees.  Think about implementing a fun contest or competition in your workplace to increase employee morale and build group cohesion through teamwork.

What games, contests, or competitions do you implement in your organization?

HON Chair Chooser – NEW! To hon.com

We’re excited to introduce our newest interactive tool, Chair Chooser^™. This tool provides you with a recommendation for the best HON or basyx by HON chair for you, based on a few simple questions. This tool operates intuitively on all web browsers, tablets, and smartphones, so try it anywhere!

Visit hon.com/ChairChooser to access this exciting new tool and click “Launch” at the top of the page.

Once you launch the tool you are ready to begin. Select “Enter Chair Chooser” to start finding the best chair for you.

The next screen prompts you to select where you will use your chair. The options range from ‘Behind a Desk’ to ‘Multi-Purpose’ applications. Once you select where you will use the chair, you will  see a drop down menu that will assist in narrowing down your selection.  For example, if you select ‘At a Table’ you will be asked if the chair will be used at a conference table, training table, break room table or office table.

Next, you will be asked a few questions regarding some of the features you want in your chair. You do not have to answer all the questions, so if there is something that you aren’t sure about, feel free to leave it blank. However, please note that answering all of the questions will give you the best recommendation. If you have any questions, click on the small question mark in the upper right hand corner. This will lead you to the Help Page and should be able to answer any questions you may have regarding the tool. Also, if at any time you wish to start over you can do so by clicking the Home icon, also located in the top right hand corner.

After making your selections you will receive  our chair recommendation that best suits your needs. You will be able to review your selections off to the left hand side. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find up to three other chair recommendations that you may also be interested in. We would love for you to share your chair recommendation, by using the green buttons on the right hand side of the screen. Here you have the ability to share your chair on Facebook, pin it to Pinterest, email, print a PDF and learn more about your recommendation by viewing videos and visting hon.com.

We hope that you enjoyed learning more about Chair Chooser and how it can assist you in finding the best recommended chair for you.

Try Chair Chooser For Yourself!