Why Multitasking Can be Bad for Business
Wednesday
May 17, 2006
Here’s another linkove going the Taorist’s way. Today, Taorist posts on why multitasking can be harmful to business. Unfortunately, though, businesses nowadays are fond of having employees multi-task! He calls it the worst business invention of all time.
My problem with this, is that the lone multitasker would be forced to deal with work loads that would far exceed the capabililty of one person.
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Most managers would disagree with my proposals because it takes time and money to develop these, but in the long run–it’ll be better for the company and result in high company loyalty.
Now I, for one, know that Taorist is in the Human Resources (HR) profession, so he should know about this stuff!
I, myself, had been dabbling in human resource themes, with my previous content-creation projects, and my foremost realization would be that the best employee is the happy employee.
And then I know a handful of local companies who try to squeeze every bit of effort from their employees (yes, multitasking included) without the commensurate compensation. These employees in turn get burned out easily and eventually move on to better things.
I’d say let’s keep multitasking to our hyper-threaded, dual-core, 64-bit-processing computers! Or at least, let’s limit this to the routine work, and not those that require creativity and deep thinking.
I agree with Taorist that the HR process should be fine-tuned to look for the productive people rather than deadwoods. But then, creativity requires concentration and inspiration! If you ask me, I’d rather go for the creative-types than drones who will do your every bidding. I’ve actually been head-hunting (well, still in the process, really), and this is one of the things I first look for in prospective employees.
Update, 1:21 a.m., May 21, 2006 – I found this interesting post on Multitasking over at Creating Passionate Users.
But where I once believed that the myth of multitasking was about time (that doing four things simultaneously takes much longer than to do those same four things in sequence), scientists now know it’s also about quality. And it gets worse… it’s not just that the quality of those four things in parallel will suffer, it’s that your ability to think and learn may suffer. Some researchers believe that all this constant, warpspeed, always-on multitasking is causing young people, especially, to become less able to follow any topic deeply.
Comments
Lex
May 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
I suppose by multitasking means an employer diversifies the work an employee does, thus, an employee never gets to master a specific point of his job discription. Yes that’s bad.
On my point of view, if I were to hire an employee, I’d prefer one who knows more than his/her job discription.
An office must continue to function even in the absence of a co-worker. So an employee who could perform, as substitute for the absence co-worker, with appriciable efficiency usually has an edge, at least, in my point of view.
J. Angelo Racoma
May 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Lex, you know, I agree with your point, too. I’m for being a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none). Duplicity is good, too, in that critical functions are not stopped when one of your employees is absent. But Taorist’s (and my) point is that employees are oft overloaded, and hence their focus tends to sway away from their core functions. And then they aren’t adequately compensated for the added workload (especially in our country!).
taorist
May 24th, 2006 at 8:03 am
First off, thanks for the posting!
There are ways to make working life flow smoother by actually ACTUALLY thinking and reviewing job descriptions. Some JDs were just done in the heat of the moment (the day before). This results in further confusion and demoralization.
Hopefully, I can do something about from the inside.
mi amore
February 25th, 2008 at 12:03 am
for me, i think there is no wrong about multitasking because it develops employee’s skills not only on the field he had learned from his degree, it will enhance the person’s potential to become more effective and efficient towards the job he handles. On the other hand, multitasking can become bad if the quality of work is sacrifice. This is also considers the motivational factors employer gives to the employee thru the right salary, right working environment and fair management practices.
Dave Crenshaw
May 26th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Hi i`m Dave Author, “The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing It All’ Gets Nothing Done”. I do agree that Multitasking Can be Bad for Business and this is my explanation, book and some videos. Thank you
Multitasking