CEO of Rallyware.
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Focus and attention are major engines of productivity, particularly if the workforce isn’t being managed in the traditional, top-down fashion. Gone are the days of all workers clocking in for eight hours and clocking out. Increasingly, with the rise of the gig economy and distributed work, folks get out what they put in, which requires their attention.
When dealing with the voluntary workforce, companies are competing for such attention—what we might call their “mindshare”—in a radically new way. According to The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, U.S. companies lose upward of $391 billion per year from distraction.
Firms that can defeat distraction will be ready to lead their industry into the 2020s. They’ll have a workforce that’s laser focused on results and truly motivated to be entrepreneurs, a workforce that feels like it’s easy to be productive and engaged in what we could call their “productivity function.”
Technology And Worker Mindshare
One of the major influences on the work experience, one which can potentially claw back a lot of that revenue lost on distraction, is technology. It’s also a core area of business spending today: Gartner reports that in 2021, 69% of boards of directors were accelerating their digital transformation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With so much spending heading toward technology, it only makes sense to try to digitize one of the crucial experiences of work: being managed, or having one’s attention focused to achieve productivity. Yet this must be adapted to the digital age, where workers are more autonomous and self-driven. You can’t simply have a “robot manager” who tells people what to do.
Let’s look at some popular apps as an example.
1. Uberize And Gamify In A Unified Experience
In order to drive employees’ attention, consider how to use technology or an app that’s not only easy enough to use to compete with Instagram, Facebook and others, but that also gamifies employees’ attention and their social interactions. One area that could be instructive here is classroom learning. According to research in classrooms, students’ attention spans are much-improved by gamification elements in learning—think of leaderboards, badges and other game-like components.
While this might seem separate from gig workers, retail store associates and other members of the distributed workforce, these individuals, like students, get out what they put in. Classrooms have to compete for student mindshare, just as companies have to compete for the workforce’s mindshare. It’s just that the problem is sharper for companies; attending school is mandatory, but working for a retailer is not.
The latest research shows that neurologically, the brain’s “blue spot” governs our attention span. A neurotransmitter called “noradrenaline,” which makes up the blue spot, floods the nervous system to drive our attention toward specific goals. It’s instructive to remember that noradrenaline is part of our body’s “fight-or-flight” response.
To stimulate the production of noradrenaline, the focus of our attention has to matter to us. It has to stimulate an instinctive, powerful response; it has to be immediately relevant to our well-being.
Apps that compel workforce mindshare become and remain relevant to worker achievement. They don’t passively sit there on the worker’s smart device; they actively engage with him or her. Think of an app for the field workforce that “gamifies” the growth of the individual, an app that engages their attention by tracking their progress relative to objectives that matter to them, like earning a set weekly amount. Then they help the user “level up” and heighten their performance.
Such apps already exist and are being widely used for entrepreneurial ends. Uber helps drivers reach their goals, for instance, by offering rewards and incentives for meeting performance metrics.
Yet the Uber app isn’t so different from everyone’s favorite social media apps. On a fundamental level, Uber taps into the same neurological needs. Just as Instagram “gamifies” the process of getting likes and followers and sharing vacation photographs, Uber “gamifies” making money, thus making it into something that folks want to return to. It rewards engagement—only with money instead of likes.
In essence, productivity apps and the “distractor” social media apps share some fundamental features. They’re competing for mindshare using the same elements of gamification. Apps designed to engage in this manner can truly compete for worker mindshare.
2. Drive Behavior Change
My company’s research found that the key to driving attention is to drive behavior change to boost performance, which shows the importance of learning tasks and smart notifications.
Try designing micro-tasks that meet the workforce right where they are, just as an Uber driver might get a notification to drive to a certain, busy location to meet her goals for the day, which then teaches her to return to that location at that time of day in the future.
Does this apply to the distributed workforce at large? Absolutely. For instance, does a retail associate need to meet their sales goals for the week? Use technology to fold in smart notifications—messages that notify the associate (in this example) of their proximity to their goal—and provide an automated suggestion of how to reach that goal. That will then teach them how to meet that specific goal in the future, while giving them the pleasure of “leveling up.”
Giving users the most relevant content to their goals will drive their attention to the app and show them how to meet those goals, which works for your bottom line. That’s the kind of point-A-to-point-B experience that can hold user attention in a time of distraction. At a moment when the workforce feels overwhelmed by distractors, leading to disengagement, technology can help you motivate them intelligently.
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