How to Maximize Your Employees’ Attention

Did you know that according to Microsoft, the average human attention span has decreased since the year 2000? 19 years ago the average attention span as 12 seconds, and now it is down to just eight.

The most likely culprits are an increase in technology such as smartphones, emails, social media, apps, and multiple competing sources of information.

Keeping your employees engaged and attentive can be difficult. Here are some of the ways that you can help to improve it.

1. Decrease emails

Hands down, this is one of the biggest distractions of the modern workplace. Email overload or overwhelm is a real thing that drives many people to distraction, and also stresses them out to boot.

It’s thought that the average office employee has around 121 new emails arriving in their inbox each and every day and it takes them around 28 per cent of their work week to manage them.

Constant emails arriving can also affect attention span as they distract your workers and interrupt them mid-task. The obvious end result of this is that productivity takes a hit.

Many businesses are starting to ban emails or place serious limitations on when and how they should be used to communicate internally.

2. Consolidate your internal communications channels

When employees have to check multiple places throughout the day for information, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Are they constantly looking for updates on your homepage, for new emails, on your corporate social media pages, on apps such as Teams or Slack, on chats or on Skype?

20, 30, 40 years ago, employees were not bombarded with so much information and so many places they needed to look. Consider paring back how you communicate or send out a digest of relevant information to everyone at the same time, such as through a DeskAlerts pop-up notification.

3. Keep all your messaging simple

Help employees to keep their eyes on the prize – your organization’s overall mission and goals. All your internal communications should reflect this and your messaging should be consistent.

When you send them new priorities constantly they will diverge and become confused – you should only do this when it is mission critical otherwise everyone will start to feel as though they are on a ship without a rudder.

4. Reach them where they live

Make the most of any available “real estate” to communicate your company’s important messages to employees, particularly when it comes to their computers.

An internal communication software solution such as DeskAlerts comes with options to communicate both disruptively and passively.

Passive options include corporate wallpapers, corporate screensavers and digital signage solutions that turn your employees’ screens into delivery mechanisms that enhance and promote your branding, communications and marketing campaigns.