Is cognitive overload leading to less productivity? | Women helping to reduce truck driver shortage | Leaders must learn to collaborate to maximize value
Writing out a work plan is easy compared with getting employees to focus on it, experts say. Office distractions will always play a part, but some executives like Crystal Burwell of Newport Healthcare Atlanta point to cognitive overload as workers' brains are "short-circuited due to being inundated with information."
A record number of women have entered the trucking profession, with 1.6 million women constituting 18% of the trucking industry workforce, according to an October Bureau of Labor Statistics report. Ellen Voie, president of the Women in Trucking Association, and Desiree Wood, president of Real Women in Trucking, say that burnout in the health care and retail industries is contributing to the rise of women in the industry.
Strategy 'Activation' vs. 'Communication' When launching a new strategy, most leaders send memos or a PowerPoint presentation explaining the organization's new direction. It's time to try something different that actually makes your strategy stick. It's time to start thinking strategy 'activation' instead of 'communication'. Learn how to activate your strategy.
Michele Prota, global chief talent officer at Forsman & Bodenfors, writes about why agencies must be committed to pay equity to ensure true inclusion. Prota explains the agency's certification by nonprofit Fair Pay Workplace, noting "that validating our efforts with an objective, third-party partner is an essential choice for instilling confidence and trust for our employees, clients and the industry."
Nearly 136,000 undergraduate students were majoring in computer science in 2021 -- three times as many as in 2011 -- according to data from the Computing Research Association. Yet, recent layoffs and hiring freezes at high-profile tech firms such as Meta, Twitter, Alphabet and Amazon are causing anxiety for some recent graduates and students seeking internships in the field.
Find the top talent you need in a tough job market by offering a simple application process, communicating clearly with top candidates and building relationships with them to create a pipeline for future openings, writes Pete Lamson, CEO of Employ. "With a looming recession, fewer workers will leave a job without securing another, creating an even smaller talent pool," Lamson writes.
It’s the end of the year and projects are flying at us like a snowstorm. Last Thursday afternoon, I got three emails, within minutes of each other, outlining new projects, all with aggressive timelines. As I read the emails, I could feel the tension gathering in my shoulders. I got up from my desk to stretch and take a short walk.
It wasn’t the projects -- they looked interesting and fun. They’re the kinds of projects that my team gets excited about. They fire up our creative engines and let us flex our mental muscle.
The problem is time and mental overload. Other teams have offered to help offload project tasks from us -- which we appreciate -- but it’s not the right answer. We want to spend our energy and attention on these projects; they’re our bailiwick.
Today’s top story talks about how the inability to focus (owing to time or distractions) is disrupting our productivity. Yair Nativ writes, citing data from a University of California at Irvine study, that the average person takes 23 minutes to “return to a deep work flow after a simple workplace distraction.” Checking email. Responding to a Basecamp question. Answering a Slack message. All of this toggling between work tasks and platforms eats into our day and attention span.
And stalls our productivity. So what’s the answer?
I’m not sure yet. I’m playing with some ideas. I’d love to hear yours. What do you do to free up time for you and your team so you can focus on important work? Let me know! And if you enjoy this brief, tell others so they can benefit also.
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