Distractions in the workplace are common. Plus, the issue is that you can’t eliminate them all. Furthermore, they seriously lower your productivity a lot. So, it’s better to avoid them. However, how can you do that? If you are looking for the perfect solutions to your office distraction issues, then you have come to the right page.
Research has it that about 79% (which is a lot) of employees feel distracted in the office. That’s why it’s crucial to avoid workplace distractions as much as possible. Doing so will not only boost your productivity but also create a workable environment. Plus, your rapport will be better, and your interpersonal relationships.
In today’s blog, we will tell you all about the 15 most common distractions in the workplace. Plus, you will know how they impact your efficiency and productivity. By the end of the blog, you will have all the information and the software you need to avoid distractions and improve workplace performance.
The Most Common Distraction in The Workplace
DRUM ROLLS! It’s your smartphone. 90% of employees believe that their phones are the biggest reason for distracted work in the workplace. The next biggest issue is chatty coworkers, which is around 50%. Ironically, the closest to you in the workplace are the ones to be alarmed by. As per research by Workmajig, other reasons include:
- The internet: 30%
- Office Noise: 25%
- Office gossip: 17%
- Notifications and social media: 15%
- Meetings and emails: 10%
- Boredom: 10%
- Personal problems: 9%
- Workplace changes: 7%
- Snack breaks: 5%
To summarize, distractions in the workplace are a serious issue. We can’t neglect them as they can seriously lower your productivity.
Read Also: Best 5 Ways to Calculate Employee Productivity in 2024-25
How Do Workplace Distractions Lower Employee Productivity?
As we mentioned before, distractions in the office can lower your productivity. It reduces your focus at work, significantly increasing the time it takes for you to complete your work. Overall, it eliminates your ability to be productive.
Plus, distracted employees also know that they aren’t performing their best. As per another research on distractions in the workplace:
- About 54% of employees noted that they aren’t performing at their best due to distractions.
- About 50% of employees reported that distractions significantly lower their productivity.
- About 20% of employees reported that distractions stopped them from advancing in their careers.
Furthermore, it takes about 23 minutes and 15 seconds on average for distracted workers to return to being focused at work. Plus, distractions can increase stress levels and reduce job satisfaction. Also, distractions cause multitasking, which is not good for productivity. It slows us down, making us more prone to mistakes.
How to Avoid the 15 Causes of Distractions at Work?
So, now we know how distractions in the workplace can impact our productivity. That’s why, it is essential to understand and avoid them at all costs. Below, we have mentioned the 15 ways employees can get distracted and provided the best solutions to help you get back on track.
1. Unproductive Meetings
Meetings are good. Right? They offer an opportunity to communicate, collaborate, and for employees to be on the same page. However, not all of them. What about those that are not fruitful? Yes, we are talking about meetings that don’t have a clear goal and agenda, resulting in time wastage. Who knew safety from workplace distractions like these is also necessary?
- Solution: Set clear goals and agendas to make meetings more effective.
2. Digital Notifications
Your manager notifying you about an important meeting is fine. However, your friend spamming your message app about the after-office party is not. It is one of the most alarming distractions in the workplace, which at times can get frustrating, which can cause stress and burnout.
- Solution: Set your phone to “do not disturb” during work hours only. In case of any emergencies, provide the phone number of the personnel responsible for handling that to your loved ones.
3. No Delegations
It is not one of the workplace distractions but a reason, which leads to your employees getting distracted. When one employee has many tasks and responsibilities, it can be overwhelming and inefficient. Plus, micromanaging also causes burnout and missed deadlines. Overall, it distracts your employees from focusing on the task.
- Solution: Understand the strengths and weaknesses of each employee and distribute tasks accordingly.
4. Ambient Noise
One of the distractions in the workplace is ambient noise, which is the opposite of working in peace. As per the research we have seen, about 52% of employees in an organization get distracted by noise. What’s more, is that about 65% of them stated that it affected their performance. Plus, office noise including machine noises can cause demotivation and stress.
- Solution: Use a noise-canceling headphone or work in a noise-free space.
5. Multitasking
One of the causes of distracted work in the workplace is multitasking. Today, to exceed the expectations most new employees multitask. However, did you know that only 2.5% of employees can effectively do it? For the rest, multitasking is equal to distraction.
- Solution: Develop your employees’ skillsets to multitask effectively.
6. Social Media
Did you know that a person checks his/her smartphone 47 times per day on average? Out of that 2 hours and 23 minutes is on social media. According to expert sources, it affects around 34% of employees in an organization.
- Solution: Turn off notifications while working.
7. Competition
Here, we mean competing deadlines and priorities. To do so, managers assign their employees too much work than they can handle, which is one of the reasons for distractions in the workplace. However, why is this a distraction? It’s because, your employees will multitask to complete deadlines without resting, negatively affecting their concentration.
- Solution: Assign optimal workload to employees. In simple words, the work of your employees must be doable.
Read Also: 15 Ways to Develop Employee Self-Management Skills
8. Insecure Communication Apps
Employees play favorites when it comes to communication apps. However, it is a major cause of distraction. All it takes is one notification for the employee to start checking memes. Overall, it is not good for their productivity. Here’s how to avoid distractions at work for this kind of issue.
- Solution: Use a secure and encrypted communication channel across your organization. You also need to ensure that your employees only use the permitted communication apps.
9. Cramped Workspace
A cramped workspace is one of the most annoying distractions in the workplace. It negatively affects your focus and ability to understand information. Now, a cluttered workspace can be due to many reasons including a pile of boxes on your desk or an unneeded pile of documents. What’s alarming is that per a survey, 21% of employees believed that a cramped space boosted their workload. 20% of them claimed that a colleague’s messy desk also impacted their performance.
- Solution: Use Cloud storage to eliminate keeping papers on the desk. Removing unnecessary desk items will also unclutter the workspace.
10. Gossip
To build good relationships with your colleagues, it is essential to converse regularly. It creates a healthy, collaborative, and friendly atmosphere. However, if it converts into endless chatter, then you need to think twice. Talking about TV shows or an employee for hours is not only one of the distractions in the office but it also makes the environment toxic.
- Solution: Directly tell your colleagues that their gossip is distracting you. It also helps foster better communication. However, don’t try to be rude.
11. Snack Breaks
Another one of the distractions in the workplace is the urge to have a snack. What employees do is ignore it and continue working. However, over time, this bite-sized hunger causes them to lose focus and give poor work performance.
- Solution: Bring healthy snacks to the office and munch them whenever you feel hungry. However, do not let the hunger pangs distract you. Snacking only takes up to 5 minutes, which doesn’t lower your productivity.
12. Personal Problems
One of the reasons you might have distracted workers in your organization is their other issues such as a sick child. It’s important to notice that your employees also have a life outside of work, which you also need to help them balance with their work.
- Solution: Take some time off to attend to personal problems including sickness or your child’s parent-teacher meeting.
13. Boredom
Boredom as per our experience is the most noticeable distraction in the workplace. It is usually when an employee is doing repetitive tasks per day. Also, at first glance, it may look normal. However, it can poorly affect the mental health of your employee (s).
- Solution: Rotate your tasks as much as and if possible. However, if you know that you will be doing repetitive tasks every day, try working to some soothing music.
14. Workspace Changes
Out of all the workplace distractions, employees pray that this doesn’t even happen to their enemies. Change in the workspace can be anything from changing employee desks to changes in the equipment arrangements. However, whatever the reason, it always negatively affects employee performance.
- Solution: Adjusting to changes in the workspace can be difficult. However, one way to do it is to try relaxing and asking your superiors for help. Otherwise, you can directly tell your managers that it will take some time to adjust to the changes. For employers, it’s crucial to not change the workspace structure or employee desks often.
15. Distractions from Others
Last but not least, this is a distraction in the workplace that is almost unavoidable. It can be either a colleague who shows up at your cubicle for a query or a newly joined fresher who needs help getting around. Whatever your case, it again breaks your focus on a task.
- Solution: You can close doors or put on headphones to signal that you are doing important work. Plus, directly telling your colleagues that you will answer their queries later can also help.
Other Distractions in the Workplace
Other than the 15 ones we mentioned above, there are other uncommon workplace distractions as well. It is also essential to make strict policies to ensure that employees focus more on the work than these unnecessary things.
- Rumors in the workplace can also cause distractions.
- A fancy new thing such as a new projector that arrived a few hours ago can be a major attraction and distraction.
- It’s natural for employees to turn heads when the door opens. However, constantly doing so can make them lose focus.
- The urge to discuss something with an adjacent colleague can make you lose focus quickly.
- Similarly, the urge to finish an unfinished lunch discussion during work hours can also be distracting.
Read Also: Supporting Employees in the Workplace: Strategies That Work
How Can DeskTrack Help Eliminate Workplace Distractions?
DeskTrack is the best and most intuitive employee monitoring software, which provides you with exceptional features to help avoid distractions. Let us take a look at how DeskTrack can make your deskspace distraction-free and introduce more productivity.
- You can block unnecessary websites and apps using the desktop, web, and mobile apps.
- Usually, when an employee is distracted, they tend to switch to more interesting tabs. DeskTrack takes frequent screenshots, so you will easily identify these issues.
- The automated time tracker increases focus and efficiency on the task at hand. Plus, it is natural for the employees to not let the counter reach an unrealistically large time number.
- Real-time activity monitoring prevents employees from getting distracted. Plus, they also become more accountable and responsible.
- The one-click leave management feature allows employees to easily take time off and attend to personal matters, ensuring that they return to the office with more will to work.
Other than helping you eliminate distractions in the workplace, DeskTrack also aims to boost profitability. With its real-time tracking and employee activity monitoring, you will ensure that your employees are always performing to the best of their capabilities.
Conclusion
We hope you are now clear about the 15 common distractions in the workplace and how they can impact your productivity. As a final word, we can conclude that distracted employees are a liability to your organization as they don’t show focus at work. Plus, they also fail to perform to the best of their abilities. Not only that, organizational distractions can also take a serious toll on your employees’ mental health as we mentioned several times in the post. Furthermore, with the most common distractions being smartphones and chatty coworkers, we can note that the closest to you in the workplace are the ones to be alarmed of. If neglected, distractions can become permanent guests in organizations and businesses, which is never good. Thus, identifying solutions is necessary to avoid and eliminate these unnecessary things at all costs. Overall, we hope your organization is distraction-free and full of productivity.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. What are the Most Common Distractions in the Workplace?
Ans. As per our expertise and various surveys and research conducted over the years, we shortlisted the 15 most common distractions in the workplace.
- Unproductive Meetings
- Digital Notifications
- No Delegations
- Ambient Noise
- Multitasking
- Social Media
- Competition
- Insecure Communication Apps
- Cramped Workspace
- Gossip
- Snack Breaks
- Personal Problems
- Boredom
- Workspace Changes
- Distractions from Others
Q. How to Manage Distractions in the Workplace?
Ans. Here are some tips to avoid distractions at work.
- Organize and plan
- Limit interruptions
- Personal communication in free time only.
- No multitasking
- Block online distractions
- Set boundaries with colleagues
- Make break times
- Work in time blocks
- Schedule your emails
- Shut the office door
Q. What is a Distraction Strategy?
Ans. Using the right distraction techniques can help you focus on the task at hand. Especially, when you are anxious, panicked, or distressed. Although, it may seem difficult at first. Over time, it can become a useful and healthy method of coping with the situation.
