HOW TO BUILD A CULTURE THAT HONORS QUIET TIME

Within a company, employees are its most essential asset. With their specialized knowledge, skill sets, and collaborative experience, they can help pave the way to success. However, most employees feel deflated and find it hard to work up to their full potential in the workplace.

Increased interruptions, unexpected questions from colleagues, loud coworkers, random brainstorms and meetings, and incoming calls can be just as overwhelming for employees as they are for businesses. Constant interruptions hurt employee performance in your company and harm mental health, resulting in many repercussions.

The increase in quiet time can boost the collective growth of the company up to 23% or more. In this blog, We will guide you about distractive tasks' problems, quiet time policies, the collective impact of quietness, and ultimately discuss the keys to creating an ambiance that honors quiet time. 

As a leader, you must give employees some space and quiet time, or it's better to say you must create a quiet and peaceful environment for your employees.

The Interruptions

An office worker gets an average of 11 minutes only between each interruption. Let's not lie to the actual situation and understand the cost of the interruption. 

Interruptions are creating negative impacts both on employees and the company. A study by researchers at the University of California revealed that an office worker takes about 25 minutes to return to a task after an unexpected disruption. You can estimate how uncontrolled interruptions experienced in open offices significantly reduce productivity. 

We always appreciate teamwork and collaborative culture as an approach to innovation and creativity. It establishes multiple opportunities to form meaningful relationships with colleagues. However, the same configuration can also make them more vulnerable to distractions. 

Last Longing exposure to such noise and distraction could increase cortisol levels (steroid-based stress hormone). Constant, high cortisol levels can cause insulin resistance, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and type-2 diabetes.

Need Some Quietness

At the same time, absolute silence is not a solution. Quietness throughout the day may seem intimidating. And therefore, you need to establish a balance between silence and endless disturbance. It would be the key to harmonious work life.

Introducing a few hours of quietness into your workspace could enhance employees' productivity, focus, and creativity. The noise from outside distracts employees; meanwhile, creating a surrounding with absolute silence wouldn't solve it. If we set out a few selective quiet hours with a set of rules, the outcomes will be in our hands. 

Personal Quietnesses Together Sound Productive 

In an article published on Medium.com, the Co-founder and CEO of Milanote Ollie, Campbell, explains how he made his company 23% more productive by introducing bits of quietness to the work schedule. He wrote, "Collaboration isn't free; it comes at a cost." The cost you may be aware of now.

Campbell values teamwork and collaboration as vital tools for effectiveness, but he also believes that we should consider employees' ability to focus on their respective tasks equally. The way we spend our time should be a choice. A choice to create an impeccable balance between isolation and loud chaos is a more accurate term that we needed to work on. 

Campbell made his team agree to divide each day in half and spend the first part in quietness and silence. In the afternoon, they will get together to share ideas and reflect on what has been done. He has created specific policies regarding "Quiet Hours." You can read a brief about his policies here.

He found this tactic extremely helpful and increased productivity by up to 23%. However, distinct circumstances demand a diverse approach to create unique quietness that everybody honors. You will have to figure out the correct method for quiet hours for your office. Giving every individual a few hours of quietness will uplift productivity significantly. Individual quietnesses together will magnify the overall productivity. 

How To Build A Culture That Honors Quiet Time 

The most convenient way to build a culture that values quiet time is to officially announce the "Quiet Hours Program" with specific guidelines and policies. For instance, no emails on Friday, no meeting on Wednesday, and more. You have just gone through Campbell's way of establishing quietness by splitting up the day into two halves. 

Quiet hour promotion will be a continuous process in the workplace. Promoting and encouraging employees for the quiet hour program is effective instead of implementing it as an official compulsion. As a leader, you should encourage the acceptability of the quietness' policy with transparency.  

Leading a culture is like baking an awesome cake. The leaders of your company need to be straightforward, honest, and reliable. Honesty builds trust and helps execute ideas more effectively. Leadership creates a bond that creates positive energy and powerful momentum within organizations. This is especially important when it comes to employees who need to be able to put their trust in the leader, who then reinvests the trust by making decisions that will help them become even better at what they do!

In an article published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, "By obtaining trust from followers, leaders activate the fundamental psychological forces sustaining employees' job activities and create an environment facilitating productivity in the workplace."

After building a healthy relationship with employees, you can easily elaborate on the need for quietness in the workplace. The process takes time and ultimately leads to a harmonious work-life with quiet hours. You must be careful about employees' opinions and feedback regarding quiet hours and note the progress report at weekly or monthly intervals.

I would conclude that collaboration and teamwork create incredible momentum for a company's growth. The work culture and atmosphere of Google, Meta (previously known as Facebook), Microsoft, and similar companies, are unrestricted and comfortable.

These companies focus on employees' participation in co-curricular activities and give open permission to work anywhere they want. Are they promoting a distractive atmosphere? No! Instead, the employees are still performing at their peak potential. How the exact opposite of the quietness program works for them? 

One possible reason is that the people of these giant companies are typically Type-A personalities. They are very goal-oriented and focused on getting ahead. A team of such goal-oriented people is the reason for the powerful drive of the company. In terms of cost, their salary packages are incredibly high. 

These strategies may not be feasible for every company. A small company or startup include people of diverse personality and a range of credentials. Not all employees necessarily have such a focused mindset. Therefore, a quiet time program should be a better strategy to implement in a majority of companies.

To read more engaging content like this, visit the Cogent Infotech website.