the benefits of a social work environment

Tuesday March 15, 2016

Did you know that socialising in the workplace actually increases productivity.

An empirical study of call centre workers from a large US bank found that the strength of an individual’s social group was positively related to productivity. It also found that giving employees breaks at the same time increased the strength of an individual’s social groups.

Researchers Pentland and Waber, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used ‘sociometric badges’ to measure interactions between workers at the call centre. This provided a consistent and objective data source for their study. Productivity data from the call centre was then analysed for each badge wearer.

The study found that the badge wearers with more social connections - and more interactions with co-workers in their social network - had the highest productivity, whether they were talking about work or other things.

Originally each call centre team member had a separate 15 minute break during the day. This break structure made it very difficult for social relationships to develop. For the purposes of the study, the break structure was changed for two of four teams to test the idea that social interaction during breaks provided employees with a valuable opportunity to discuss difficult issues as well as exchange knowledge about their job.

After a three month trial of the new break structure the sociometric badges were used again to measure the behavior of the participating teams.

The study found that changing the break structure increased the strength of social networks and increased productivity.

Another study conducted by Gallup found that employees having a ‘best’ friend at work is vitally important to the success of a company.

The study found that those who had best friends at work were 7 times more likely to be engaged with their job. They had higher sales and profitability, better engaged customers, produced higher quality work, had greater commitment to the firm’s mission, had better safety records, were happier at work, and had a higher chance of sticking with a firm.  If workers didn’t have a best friend, only 8% of them were engaged in their job.

So, it would seem, a social work environment really is good for business.