Take Breaks at the Same Time
Coordinating break times for team members can lead to significant improvements in performance and satisfaction.
Summary
Research by Alex Pentland demonstrated that synchronizing break times in a call center led to a 20% performance improvement among lower-performing teams. Implement coordinated break schedules and create spaces that encourage social interaction during these times. This practice fosters informal communication and strengthens team bonds, ultimately leading to enhanced overall performance.
The idea
Social time turns out to be deeply critical to team performance, often accounting for more than 50% of positive changes in communication patterns, even in a setting as efficiency-focused as a call center.
The Evidence
Alex Pentland advised a call center to revise the employees’ coffee break schedule so that everyone on a team took a break at the same time. That would allow people more time to socialize with their teammates, away from their workstations. The results: a key performance indicator, average handle times (AHT), fell by more than 20% among lower-performing teams and decreased by 8% overall at the call center. Now the manager is changing the break schedule at all 10 of the bank’s call centers (which employ a total of 25,000 people) and is forecasting $15 million a year in productivity increases. He has also seen employee satisfaction at call centers rise, sometimes by more than 10%.
Actions to Take
Make your tables longer: data revealed that making the tables in the company’s lunchroom longer, so that strangers sat together, had a huge impact.Take breaks together: encourage employees to take breaks together, perhaps by offering a compelling drink/snack station Learn Morehttps://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams
Sources
Take Breaks at the Same Time
Boost Team Performance Through Synchronized Break Times
Summary
Research by Alex Pentland demonstrated that synchronizing break times in a call center led to a 20% performance improvement among lower-performing teams. Implement coordinated break schedules and create spaces that encourage social interaction during these times. This practice fosters informal communication and strengthens team bonds, ultimately leading to enhanced overall performance.
Take Breaks at the Same Time
Boost Team Performance Through Synchronized Break Times
Summary
Research by Alex Pentland demonstrated that synchronizing break times in a call center led to a 20% performance improvement among lower-performing teams. Implement coordinated break schedules and create spaces that encourage social interaction during these times. This practice fosters informal communication and strengthens team bonds, ultimately leading to enhanced overall performance.
Take Breaks at the Same Time
Boost Team Performance Through Synchronized Break Times
Citations
Podcast
Coordinating break times for team members can lead to significant improvements in performance and satisfaction.
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