1 billion working days lost
every year to multitasking
“Multitasking is now a requirement of almost nine
in every ten jobs.”
Randstad UK poll
As the demands of technology and social media in the
workplace multiply, multitasking is becoming a bigger part
Does your role involve more multitasking
than it did 2-3 years ago?
of people’s jobs, according to new research from global
recruiter Randstad.
In a poll of 2,025 British adults, 45% of respondents said
16%
they have to deal with more multitasking in their working
lives than they did two or three years ago, compared to
just 16% who said they have to deal with less (the rest
said it was unchanged).
45%
More multitasking
Less multitasking
Unchanged
39%
Percentage of jobs requiring multitasking by UK city
89% said multitasking is
part of their role
11%
11% said their role does
not require multitasking
The research also found that multitasking is now a
requirement of almost nine in every ten jobs. Roughly
one-tenth (11%) of respondents said their job did not
89%
require any multitasking while almost nine-tenths (89%)
said it was part of their role. Jobs in Edinburgh, Glasgow
and London were most likely to involve multitasking,
while Cardiff and Sheffield were the least likely.
Percentage of jobs requiring
multitasking by UK city
Percentage of employees by city
who have developed
strategies to deal with the
demands of multitasking
Cardiff
Manchester
Bristol
Newcastle
Liverpool
Birmingham
Belfast
London
Edinburgh
Glasgow
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
‘regaining our initial momentum
following an interruption takes,
on average, 25 minutes’
The problem is that there’s a price to be paid for the
growing number of interruptions employees face.
According to a University of California-Irvine study,
regaining our initial momentum following an interruption
takes, on average, more than 25 minutes.
The solution to problems associated with multitasking
Randstad suggests two solutions to the problem.
Highflying employees who want to maintain their
Instead of scattering phone calls, meetings,
productivity can change their environment to move
administrative work, and emails throughout the day, they
temptation further away – shutting down emails, closing
can trygrouping related tasks so there are fewer
Twitter and Facebook, and silencing phones. And they can
transitions between them.
cluster similar activities together, keeping
the transitional ramp-up time to a minimum.
Mark Bull
CEO of Randstad UK
“Going off-grid for half an hour will boost your
productivity – it’s easier to concentrate when you’re
not continuously fending off mental cravings to
check your phone or have a look at your Twitter
feed. Alternatively, you can read reports, articles
and other documents one after another.
Book in meetings back-to-back, and if possible, try
“Going off-grid
for half an hour
will boost your
productivity”
limiting email to two or three set times instead of
responding to them the moment they arrive. Of
course, that still won’t stop colleagues interrupting
you – but it’s a start.”
At present, few people are taking advantage of tactics like these. When Randstad asked employees if they ever change their
environment to move the temptation to multitask further away, just 33% said yes.
Mark Bull said: “Highflying A-players who are busy
being successful will have figured out not only how
to deal with the demands multitasking makes on
their day but how to demonstrate that to potential
employers in job interviews. Employers know how
prevalent multitasking is and it frequently comes
up in interviews and even job descriptions – 12%
of the financial services jobs we’re recruiting for
even highlight the importance of multitasking in the
job specification. The best way to convince an
interviewer you are a great multitasker is to
demonstrate that you are alive to the
consequences and that you have developed
“Employers know
how prevalent
multitasking is
and it frequently
comes up in
interviews”
sensible strategies to deal with the consequences
of living in a multitasking world.”
120 minutes
per day lost to
multitasking
Given that those people interviewed as part of Randstad’s
research reported being interrupted six times every day,
and that only 33% of employees are using
strategies to manage multitasking interruptions, the
majority of employees are losing 120 minutes per day –
or ten hours every week – to multitasking.
With 22.76 million people currently working full-time in the United Kingdom, working approximately 253 days a year, the
country’s permanent work force is now losing over 1bn working days’ worth of productivity every year as a result of multitasking.
Employers want multitaskers
“Multitasking is becoming an increasingly
important part of people’s working lives...”
Mark Bull said: “Multitasking is becoming an
increasingly important part of people’s working
lives – 70% of employers tell us they regard it as
important.
That’s a problem because we all pay a cognitive
price when we multitask – we deplete our mental
energy every time we jump from one activity to
another – and that price is soaring as multitasking
“...70% of
employers tell
us they regard
it as important.”
becomes more prevalent in the workplace. The
consequences are surprisingly serious when you
take into account the amount of time it takes us to
regain our flow following another interruption.”
Impact on effective IQ
“We lose the equivalent of 10 IQ points when we
allow our work to be interrupted by seemingly
benign distractions“
An experiment conducted at the University of London
only 37% of the people who responded to the poll,
found we lose the equivalent of 10 IQ points when we
commissioned by Randstad, said they did. And when they
allow our work to be interrupted by seemingly
were asked to estimate how many IQ points
benign distractions. But when asked if they thought they
they lost, they underestimated the effect by 50%, with
paid a cognitive price when they had to drop everything
the average answer being just 5 IQ points.
and rapidly and switch between activities,
Randstad’s research also found that just 23% of
respondents did not enjoy it – with 19% saying they don’t
like it and 4% saying they hated it.
Do you appreciate the amount of
multitasking your colleagues do?
When asked if their colleagues appreciated how much
multitasking was involved in their roles, only 41% of
respondents to the survey said they felt their co-workers
understood the amount of multitasking their job entails.
% of
23%
repsondents:
Not enjoyed
Not liked
Hated
19%
41%
41% Understood
59% Misunderstood
4%
59%
90%
of women
75%
of men
There is some disparity between the sexes as to who are the
best multitaskers. More than four-fifths (83%) of people claim
they are better than average at multitasking, with only 17%
saying they are worse than average. Nine-tenths (90%) of
say they are good
at multitasking
women say they are good at multitasking while only 75% of
men say the same.
And although one-sixth (16%) of men claim to be very good
at multitasking, Randstad found the figure for women is more
than a quarter (28%).
16%
28%
claim to be
very good at
multitasking
Gender divide
There was also a gender divide when it came to
female respondents said they thought women were better
perceptions of multitasking ability.
at multitasking than men compared to just 38% of male
respondents. And while 5% of males interviewed said
While 38% of males interviewed thought men and
men were better at multitasking than women – none of
women were equally good at multitasking, just 13% of
the women interviewed said they felt the same way.
women felt the same. Almost three-quarters (74%) of
74% of women
think women are
better than men
at multitasking
Mark Bull said, “83% of people think they are
better-than-average multitaskers – they can’t all be
right. The results also show that, far from being a
myth, the perception that women are better
multitaskers than men is a fairly universally held
belief.”
5% of men think
men are better
than women
“83% of people
think they are
better than
average
multitaskers –
they can’t all be
right.”
Key Takeaways
9 in every 10 jobs now
involves multitasking
Just 33% of us have
developed strategies to cope
with demands of multitasking
It takes on average 25
We lose the equivalent of 10
IQ points when we allow our
minutes to recover momentum
work to be interrupted by
after an interruption
seemingly benign distractions
Gender split: 74% of female respondents think women are better
at multitasking than men. Only 5% of males respondents think men
are better at multitasking than women (and none of the women
thought men were better than women)