Stop Days: The Secret To Nonprofit Productivity
Beth Kanter
Trainer, Consultant & Nonprofit Innovator in digital transformation & workplace wellbeing, recognized by Fast Company & NTEN Lifetime Achievement Award.
The NTEN Book Club, organized by Lauren McKown and Kai Williams, hosted a video chat this week.This month they have been reading The Happy Healthy Nonprofit: Strategies for Impact without Burnout and discussing it in the NTEN online community. The video chat provided a nice opportunity to have conversation in real-time about the relationship between self-care and workplace productivity.
We talked about the issue of "collaborative overload" which is defined as the burnout that results from our over reliance on e-mails, meetings and other collaborative online technology tools that have, ironically, limited our ability to get stuff done.We discussed the issue in relation to remote working staff and how to address some of the common issues that hinder group and individual staff productivity.
The chart above comes from a recent study on the link between well being and workplace productivity and the impact of office design. The blue zone is productivity and as you can see it peaks in the morning (8-10 am) and (4-6 pm). As you can see, it coincides with the the orange line which represents "heads down time," or when a staff person is working solo on a particular task like writing a report, planning, or other task requiring a distraction free zone.
Other recent studies suggest that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and helps be more adaptive in the workplace. A 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, based on a survey of 43,000 workers, concluded that the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office plans reduced productivity. We also no that workplace noise and interruptions can cause stress and even be bad for our health.
For many nonprofit professionals, interactions with colleagues in meetings or informally can be very productive, but various interruptions by colleagues can not only be an obstacle to productivity, but also cause stress. One method for individuals is to schedule "power hours" by putting your planning/quiet time in your calendar and focusing on a key task such as a weekly review. Another method is finding a "Shultz Hour" where you carve an hour before or after work for silent reflection, or maybe a Shultz ten minutes by closing your office door.
This techniques can work, but if there are no workplace norms about respecting each other's need for quiet time, these techniques can be derailed.
Last month, I was honored to deliver the keynote and several workshops at the 2017 Gateway Conference on Philanthropy where my colleague Jana Byington-Smith told me what her office does. They schedule two "stop days" per month.Stop days are when no internal or external meetings take place, they do not even chat in the office. It is okay for them to close their doors - and finish up a project or do planning - any task that requires solo time.
How do you carve out quiet time to get solo tasks done? Does your nonprofit have a cultural norm that honors quiet, solo time? How does it work?
Naval Veteran w/ demonstrated Leadership & Program Mgmt. expertise, seeks 1099-C2C opportunities in Lean 6 Sigma, Program/Project Mgmt. IT Continuous Improvement, ITIL, MS Suite Expert -Teams & Dashboard Creation.
7 年Definitely pass this on to my colleagues at AARP....
Instructional Designer at Sinclair Community College
7 年Wow, stop days, or Schultz hours would be awesome... We try to encourage teamwork, collaboration and an open-door policy for communication. However. there are hours and days that I really have the need to close my door, put on the headphones and get some head-down work done. I have a great office-mate, and we work well in the same space, but it is so easy to get knocked off our stride with the normal activity of our organization. Scheduling meetings for less-productive hours, allowing flexibility for work hours and not feeling guilty about closing the door and saying, "No" are things we could do better on.
Sales Development Representative at Tenfold
7 年I love this idea. It's great to know that more and more organizations are getting better at taking care of their workers' well-being. A quiet time or break every now and then really helps keep me focused and productive. It does eliminate the feeling of being overworked and burnt out.
Administration & Finance Coordinator at Washington Association for Infant Mental Health (WA-AIMH)
7 年Stop days. What a great idea! I hope more organizations initiate them.
IT and Business Process Consultant.
7 年Too many large organizations have silos and task force teams that actually hinder the throughput and output due to meeting overkill. I've seen meetings up to 6 hours a day where the same message was being conveyed 3 times just a different audience. Poor use of time, creating bottlenecks and deadlines where missed. Then they use "Agile" terminology. Take the meetings out.. Slim down the organization and layers and have one project plan. Any strategy and process consultant with experience can recognize that in a few days or a week or two. It's a win win for the employees, C level and the bottom line.