As employees return to the office, companies embracing hybrid work arrangements face a challenge: proximity bias. 

In hybrid work environments, proximity bias could lead to the incorrect assumption that those working in the office are more productive than their remote teammates. 

Managers and employees alike are concerned about the effects of proximity bias and hybrid work. In fact:

• Two in five employees are worried that less face-to-face time with company leadership will negatively impact their career growth
• 41 percent of executives say potential inequities between remote and in-office employees are their top concern
• A study found remote workers were less likely to be promoted than their in-office colleagues, despite being 15 percent more productive

At the same time, hybrid work is the new norm. Most employees favor a hybrid work model, so forcing everyone back to the office isn’t the solution. 

That’s why it’s more important than ever to be aware of proximity bias and make sure everyone on your team feels included. 

The good news is that managers and employees alike can take steps to avoid proximity bias in the workplace. 

Here’s what we’ll cover in this post: 

• How proximity influences our perception of colleagues
• Examples of proximity bias in a hybrid workplace
• What managers and leaders can do to prevent proximity bias
• How employees can be more visible when working remotely
• The secret to making hybrid work “work”

How proximity influences our perception of colleagues

Our brains take shortcuts all the time, using processes to simplify the information around us to make more efficient decisions. 

But sometimes, our brains misinterpret that information, and it affects the accuracy of our judgments. In the case of proximity bias, our brains overvalue what is around us and undervalue what isn’t. 

If left unchecked, proximity bias can create a company culture where in-office employees are rewarded for their presence with resources and promotions while their remote counterparts are left behind.

Examples of proximity bias in the workplace

Proximity bias can show up in both big and small ways. Here are a few examples of proximity bias in the workplace:

• Offering in-person employees more exciting projects or professional development opportunities
• Leaving remote stakeholders out of decision-making or important discussions
• Providing in-person employees with more perks

While bias is often unconscious, knowing how proximity influences your decisions can help you recognize and overcome it. 

What managers and leaders can do to prevent proximity bias

The reality of the hybrid model is that we have to adapt to new ways of collaborating. 

Remote team members cannot be an afterthought. Successful hybrid leaders set up processes that allow employees to flourish regardless of where or when they work. 

Adopt a remote-first approach to communication

When everyone isn’t working in the office simultaneously (or at all), key decisions can’t be made at the water cooler. 

Adopting a remote-first approach to how your team communicates will help prevent people from feeling left in the dark when working from home.

That means when one person is remote, everyone is remote. Digital and asynchronous forms of communication should be the default method, regardless of an employee’s location.

Make sure discussions about projects and tasks happen in a digital messaging app like Slack or Teams, where all relevant team members can contribute and benefit from the conversation. 

It’s not just remote employees who benefit. Remote-first, asynchronous communication will: 

• Enable employees to take time off without feeling like they’re falling behind
• Allow new employees to get up to speed more quickly
• Archive information in a way employees can reference at any time

Stop relying on real-time meetings

When your team works across locations and time zones, relying on synchronous communication can be frustrating and unfair. Schedules and location can prevent everyone from being able to participate fully. 

If you’re like most office workers, you probably feel like you waste a lot of time in meetings anyway. Here’s the sign you need to take back your calendar. 

There are several types of meetings that are almost always better in an asynchronous format: 

• Status updates
• Project demos
• Data shareouts
• Informal training

Anytime you’re scheduling a meeting to share information, consider recording a video instead. 

Let’s say you want to share results from a recent marketing campaign with your team. If you were in a Zoom meeting, you’d probably share your screen to walk through a dashboard and provide context around the results.

With a screen capture tool like Snagit, you can accomplish the same thing in less time without interrupting your team’s day for yet another meeting or leaving someone out.

In just a few minutes, you can create a quick video that your team can watch on their own time (and even at 1.5x speed). Snagit can even simultaneously record your screen and camera, replicating the “face-to-face” feeling of an in-person or virtual meeting. 

Of course, there will be times when meeting in real time makes the most sense. There are a few things you can do to help level the playing field for remote team members:

• Have everyone call into virtual meetings individually to prevent in-person side conversations
• Make sure everyone has the equipment they need, like cameras, microphones, or bandwidth, to be fully present
• Record the meeting so those who cannot attend can watch it later

Measure employee performance by output

In a typical office environment, employees can try to impress by being the first person at their desk in the morning and the last one to leave at the end of the day. 

But focusing on hours worked as an indicator of performance can leave your team feeling pressured to be “always on” when working from home to make up for their lack of physical presence.

Instead, shift your mindset to focus less on time spent in the office or online and more on the quality and quantity of work your employees produce. 

Be intentional about checking in

When working in the same physical space as an employee, you naturally have more opportunities to observe their work, offer feedback, and recognize their success. 

To effectively manage a hybrid team, you have to be intentional about how you connect or risk in-person employees receiving preferential treatment. 

Start by keeping track of when and how you engage with your team, both in-person and virtually, and identify disparities. 

You might find that you offer feedback more frequently when working in the office. If that’s the case, employees who are remote full-time may miss out on opportunities to improve their work. 

Incorporating virtual forms of feedback into your communication could help level the playing field for fully remote employees.

How employees can be more visible when working remotely

It’s no secret that flexible, hybrid, and remote work can feel isolating. More than half of people who started working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic feel less connected to their coworkers. 

But, if you’re proactive, you can still make meaningful connections with your colleagues and establish a presence on your team while working away from the office.

Turn your camera on during virtual meetings

Many people don’t enjoy being on camera, and “Zoom fatigue” is a real phenomenon. However, video conferencing can help us feel connected even when we’re not in the same place.

When you’re on camera during a meeting, your colleagues can see your nonverbal behaviors and better understand who you are and what you’re saying. 

Turning on your camera will help people get to know you better and allow you to communicate more effectively. Research has even shown video conferencing can create perceived proximity.

To avoid video burnout, pace yourself and take breaks as needed. Identify which meetings you’ll benefit most from being on camera, and when it might make sense to step away.

Turning off the “self-view” option once you have established yourself in the frame during a meeting can also help relieve camera fatigue.

Stop relying on text-based communication

Asynchronous communication is essential for keeping hybrid and distributed teams on the same page, but it can sometimes feel less than human.

That’s because we often default to text-based ways of sharing information when research shows most people understand information better when it’s communicated visually. 

The next time you’re about to send a mile-long email, consider if a video message could be more effective. 

Suppose you’re providing feedback on a project. Text-based communication can easily lead to misunderstandings. But, when your teammates can hear your voice and see your face, they’re less likely to need clarification. 

Even better, with Snagit, you can record your screen and draw attention to the areas of a project needing attention with arrows and callouts while you walk through your feedback.

What could have been a boring or confusing email thread can be transformed into an opportunity for communication that feels more like the face-to-face interactions you might have in an office environment. 

Ask for advice

Proximity bias can put remote workers at a disadvantage when it comes to professional development.

For example, when leadership teams are working primarily in the office, in-person employees may be more likely to be top of mind when new opportunities arise. 

While your company is hopefully taking steps to address proximity bias already, you can help move your career forward by proactively seeking advice and mentorship from others at your company.

We often avoid reaching out to others for advice because we are afraid we might be bothering them or appear incompetent. 

However, studies show that asking for advice facilitates meaningful connections with our colleagues and also helps us make a positive impression on our mentors.

The secret to making hybrid work “work” is effective communication

Many of us have spent most of our professional careers working in an office space. It will take time to unlearn habits that no longer make sense and replace them with new ways of working.

Embracing asynchronous communication tools like Snagit will transform the way we work for the better.

As the norm for workplaces continues to shift, teams oriented around one shared space have become less standard. Workplaces have significantly shifted to hybrid models. According to a TechSmith study, 58% of people work hybrid, 31% are always in-office, and 7% are always remote.

The office has evolved from a common space between four walls with easy access to all employees simultaneously, to an uncontained global space spanning multiple timezones.

Having a team distributed in this way can make it difficult to arrange meetings and opportunities for collaboration, but it also holds the benefits of extended operating hours and daily coverage.

For effective communication and collaboration with a distributed team, leaders will need to weigh various communication options and consider both synchronous and asynchronous communication methods.

So, if you’ve ever asked yourself: “What does asynchronous mean,” we’re here to help. And much more.

What is synchronous communication?

In some situations, real-time communication will be your best choice. For example:

• Discussions of sensitive projects or issues
• Providing critical feedback
• Brainstorming or decision-making meetings
• Project kickoffs or other instances where everyone needs to be quickly brought up to speed or a lot of dynamic variables need to be shared
• Rapport needs to be built 
• A crisis has happened and immediate attention is required

Synchronous communication can be valuable. A recent study found that 70% of respondents find it valuable to have decision-making meetings in real-time. 

Synchronous communication occurs in different ways. For example, face-to-face meetings, phone or video calls, instant messaging, and even coffee break conversations are all synchronous communication methods.

Synchronous communication advantages and disadvantages

Synchronous communication is a natural way of communicating for humans. Because of this, it can have some significant benefits and advantages in the workplace and has been the default form of communication historically.

Activities like brainstorming and solving in-depth problems collaboratively benefit from the ability to speak together, read body language, and give and receive real-time feedback. Similarly, project production time can be maximized.

Although it does feel easier to talk in real time most often, it can be quite disruptive to your focus. When someone pops by your desk the task you were in the middle of can suffer. Unwanted interruptions cost large companies $1 million yearly in lost productivity.

Depending on how spread out your team is, synchronous communication can cause problems with work-life balance and result in burnout because of timezone differences. 

The key is for your team to find a balance between synchronous and asynchronous communication. So let’s explore the facets of async communication.

What is asynchronous communication?

Asynchronous communication works best when:

• An immediate answer isn’t necessary
• Collaboration needs to happen with teammates across different time zones 
• You want to offer context before or after a real-time event
• A complex concept or task needs to be explained and documented for later reference
• Communication flexibility is beneficial or important to your teammates
• Message’s need to be stored for future reference

Examples of asynchronous communication include emails, project management systems, messaging platforms, and video recordings. 

Video messages can come in handy for meetings. Screen recorders like Snagit  is a great option for creating quick, effective videos that share an idea or demonstrate a process.

Video messaging is the communication method of the future! According to a TechSmith study, nearly seven in ten respondents use video messaging sometimes or often. Another 22% are open to trying it.

Asynchronous communication advantages and disadvantages

Similar to synchronous communication, there are benefits of asynchronous communication methods.

One key advantage of asynchronous communication is the flexibility it offers. The reduction in pressure to respond immediately often results in better responses and happier, less stressed team members.

Asynchronous communication works well for remote teams that cross various time zones. Messages can be delivered and received at the ideal times for each individual involved.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.4% of companies have employees working remotely at least some of the time. That means asynchronous communication is a must!

On the flip side, since there is not an immediate response, it’s not an ideal communication method for quick feedback or if your work is blocked until you get a response. Because of the lag in response times, there can be delays in progress and inefficient use of time.

Asynchronous communication versus synchronous communication, which one is right for your business?

No simple, all-encompassing answer can solve this question. A carefully curated combination of asynchronous communication and synchronous communication will best serve a business. Few workplaces can rely solely on one or the other of these approaches to communication.  

Leaders in your workforce need to understand how to weigh both options and select the optimal method for communication in any given situation. It isn’t as black and white as some people believe it to be, and rules like “asynchronous communication is for remote work” and “synchronous communication is for on-site work” leave an awful lot to be desired in their attempts at guidance.

Putting policies and processes in place can be effective in guiding the decision-making process and creating a higher-quality, cohesive work environment.

Who are you communicating with?

Well, like all communication efforts, one of the most important details to consider is who you are communicating with. For this component, considering factors like what generations your team belongs to, the concentration of introverts vs extroverts, and the size of the audience can help you make a great decision.

Gen X team members might prefer a synchronous meeting whereas Millennial and Gen Z staff might respond more positively to a recorded video message. A heavily introverted staff might be more effectively engaged in a brainstorm session completed using asynchronous communication, while an extrovert-leaning group likely prefers the energy involved with synchronous brainstorming sessions. 

How urgent is your communication? 

Another important consideration in the synchronous vs asynchronous communication debate is related to timing. As the primary difference between the two approaches is in the time between message delivery and response, this could easily be the variable that tips the scales in one direction or the other.  

Conversely, having a document passed back and forth with edits via email, a classic asynchronous approach, may be less desirable when you’re on a tight deadline than using a live document, like a Google doc, to edit and revise in real time with your collaborators.

Is complexity a factor?

One more important variable to consider is the complexity of the communication required and both your ability to effectively pass along the nuances and complexities and the receiver’s ability to pick them up using one form or the other, synchronous or asynchronous communication.

For these instances, and many others, there are many excellent tools available to support asynchronous communication.

Video communication is groundbreaking. A recent TechSmith study found that 98% of respondents who use video at work believe it improves the effectiveness of their message.

Tools like Snagit make it simple and streamlined to communicate layers of complex information effectively using visual methods.

All in all, each of these areas and likely other situation-specific factors need to be carefully considered when deciding on synchronous or asynchronous communication in the workplace. No one answer will always be right, and there may be some trial and error involved while you learn to navigate this.

Having a strong understanding of the individuals your team is comprised of, and an excellent handle on the details of each project you are working on together, will help you make the best choices for your team’s communication.

Have you ever been asked to train a colleague or even just teach them something new?

Whether there’s a new hire at your organization or a coworker who is unfamiliar with a particular task, you’ve likely needed to share your knowledge at some point.

If you’re a process owner, creating and maintaining process documentation is helpful for a variety of reasons.

Not only can documenting a process save time, but it also helps ensure that tasks get done correctly by outlining a consistent set of directions. It can also help prevent bottlenecks in day-to-day operations by spreading knowledge throughout a team instead of funneling all tasks through one person.  

In this post, we’ll cover the basics of process documentation, provide some best practices, and share a step-by-step guide that will help you document a process in just a few clicks!

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• What is process documentation?
• Why is process documentation so important for businesses?
• How to create a process easily
• Additional tips to create a process

What is process documentation?

Process documentation is the ongoing, internal, real-time act of ensuring all steps within any given process are written down and made available for others to reference. 

Process documents are the outcome of process documentation and serve to keep tasks flowing as smoothly as possible by providing clear and accurate instructions on how a process should be completed. 

Businesses need to have documentation like this in order to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in their day-to-day operations. 

Process documents can come in many forms, including process maps, checklists, policies, tutorials, screenshots, and forms. Process documentation frequently included links as well, sometimes to another program necessary for the process to be completed and sometimes to an excellent reference video or other such resources.  

Why is process documentation so important for businesses?

Eliminate errors

Process documentation is an excellent way to reduce errors in the ongoing tasks completed within a business. 

Without process documentation, it can be quite easy to miss a step within a process. 

Sometimes this won’t have a significant impact but at other times it could completely change the outcome. Having process documents available helps ensure that a process will happen exactly the same way every time, regardless of who is completing the process and how great their memory is. 

Having process documents available and in use also helps to negate the all too common errors caused by miscommunication or altogether lack of communication. 

Not all managers will communicate the purpose of or steps in a process the same way, and process documentation is an effective workaround for this. 

Regardless of who is assigning a task and how well they explain it, having access to a process document means that the person carrying out the task has a reference for how exactly to make it happen. 

Improve efficiency

Unnecessary meetings, duplicated work, and revisions are all inefficiencies that can be reduced by documenting processes. 

With all of the details documented, there is no need for a meeting (or meetings!) to review what needs to happen during a process.  

Duplicate work is reduced because, if everyone is following a well-crafted suite of documentation, redundancies should have been eliminated and revisions become less frequent as a result of clearly laid out steps and a well-articulated outcome.  

Also read: Quick reference guide

Lower costs

Almost any time we see improvements to efficiency we can find cost reduction as well. 

Less time spent in meetings and fewer iterations of a task reduces the human cost of the process while laying out exactly what resources should be in use for each step allows a business to see whether there are systems, platforms, or programs that have become redundant and can be eliminated, thereby reducing the costs associated with them.

Decrease resources associated with tasks

As mentioned above, process documentation allows for evaluation and potential reduction of the resources a business makes available. 

When the process documents clearly assign specific resources to particular points in the process the common traps of trial and error and “I wasn’t sure what to use” are removed from the equation and only what is meant to be used is used. 

Improve work quality

With nothing left up to assumption, guessing, or personal preference, process documentation can take the quality level up a notch or two for your deliverables. 

By following a well-documented process, your team will achieve a level of consistency that speaks to quality and know-how. 

And the very nature of product documentation is that of an evolving creation, so whenever efficiencies or improvements are found they can easily be integrated and operationalized. 

Increase customer satisfaction

Whether the process documents in question outline the development of a particular deliverable or the established manner in which customer service is provided, using them well will help boost customer satisfaction.  

People like quality and they like to know what to expect. Product documents help your team deliver the consistent quality service that your customers desire and deserve.

Increase employee satisfaction

No one likes to fumble their way through a process. This is especially true of employees who care about their work and strive for great results – not to mention the fact that they will typically receive feedback on their efficiency and effectiveness and likely prefer that feedback to be positive. 

By providing high-quality process documentation, you can remove any uncertainty about how a task should be executed. 

This helps give employees confidence and lets them know you are setting them up for success. That is an excellent combination for increasing employee satisfaction.

Create process documentation easily 

With all the benefits you’ve just learned, you may be wondering, “but how exactly do I document a process?” If that’s you, keep reading – we have broken it down into easy steps so you can create effective process documentation with no trouble. 

Step 1: Create a brief description of the process

The best process documents include a brief thorough description of the broader sense of the process. 

When done well, this can help the end user really understand the scope and impact of the work they are about to do, and where it falls against other tasks they hold responsibility for from the perspective of priority.  

Your description should include details like the goals and timeline for process completion, as well as a method of determining priority level. 

These components will let the user know how the process completion will impact and dovetail with their other work. It is also important to share the relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the process, as well as what other stakeholders might be involved with the process completion. 

Step 2: Define specific boundaries for the process

Once you have the description complete, the next step is to lay down the boundaries. This will let your process documentation provide clear instructions as to which teams and individuals hold responsibility for and/or are tasked with completing specific pieces of the process. 

It’s not uncommon for multiple departments to hold a piece of the process, so the documentation clearly explaining who makes what decisions and who performs which tasks can save an incredible amount of time on back-and-forth clarifying conversations. 

Step 3: Determine inputs and outputs

Next, you will need to determine and document what resources will be required to complete the process (inputs) and what the objectives are that you want to see achieved on process completion (outputs). 

When determining outputs, make sure to revisit the goals you documented in your process document’s description to make sure your outputs will see those goals achieved. 

You will use these inputs and outputs to help break everything down into smaller steps in the next stage of creating your process documentation. 

Step 4: Decide process steps

This step in creating your process documentation is one where you may find it beneficial to bring in some other individuals for a brainstorming session to make sure that you think of all the details.

Whether working with a group or solo, you’ll want to start by defining the start and end points of the process. With those identified, you can start filling in the steps required to get from point a to point b.  

Try to be as thorough as you can here, to avoid any confusion or the need for employees to guess how to bridge the gap between one step and the next. Be mindful of multiplying steps, for example, if one of the steps is a meeting, you will need to add steps to reflect booking the meeting, drafting an agenda, and sending the minutes or a follow-up email to the attendees. 

It can also be quite impactful to incorporate screenshots or screen recordings (if your process documentation will be exclusively digital) at various points as you document the steps in a process. 
These additions can add an exceptional amount of clarity to your documentation and help the team feel confident that they are on the right track. Get your free trial of Snagit to make this part quick and easy!

Step 5: Communicate with your team

When you are creating a new piece of process documentation, once you have the description, boundaries, and steps laid out it is a good idea to bring in some perspectives outside of your own. 

Gather individuals from the teams or departments that will be involved in completing the process you are documenting to make sure what you have created is clear to them. 

Are there any steps missing?  Inefficiently allocated resources?  Multiple perspectives can be quite beneficial in uncovering these and ensuring your process documentation is clear and easy to follow. 

Step 6: Prepare a process flowchart

Our research has shown us quite clearly that adding visuals to your communication is a great way to ensure its effectiveness and retention. 

Some of your staff and colleagues may also just be visual learners, so adding a highly visual process flow document or flowchart to your process documentation is a step worth taking.  

To do this, simply pull your inputs, tasks, and outputs from the process document and organize them into a flowchart. It is a good idea to pass this visual representation of the workflow by your team or direct reports to make sure it is as clear to them as it is to you.

Step 7: Take note of process exceptions

Like anything else, a process won’t look the same every time it gets completed.  Some steps may only be necessary for certain situations, and irrelevant in others.  

For example, your project documentation might indicate meetings at 3 points throughout the process, but with less complex versions of the desired outcome you may only actually need 2 meetings.  

These exceptions should be clearly noted in your process documents so that there is no question or misperception about when exemptions apply and when the process must be completed exactly as documented. 

Step 8: Test your process

Now that you have spent the time and energy to create thorough and accurate process documents, you need to take them for a spin. 

Things tend to work much differently in practice than they do in theory, so you will need to allow space for your team to test out the documentation and provide feedback. This is an iterative process, after all, and your outcomes can only be as good as the processes in place to reach them.  Your process documents should be tested and refined as many times as needed to achieve optimal results.  

Extra tips for effective process documentation

Make it visual

Research shows that 67% of people understand information better when it’s communicated visually.

Including screenshots in your documentation is one of the fastest, most effective ways to show colleagues how to do something. Our favorite tool to use for process documentation is Snagit.

Snagit allows you to easily capture screenshots and add text callouts, numbered steps, and other customizable annotations to draw attention to a particular area to convey information. 

Keep it simple

Be mindful of your audience’s cognitive load – eliminate unnecessary distractions from your content so that your audience can focus on what is important. There are several ways to do this, but in general, your guiding principle should be to boil down the communication to the essentials.

Aim for evergreen 

As you plan and work through documenting a process, try to avoid examples and text which will quickly become outdated. 

For example, try not to use version numbers in software, dates, or references that could quickly become irrelevant. Being mindful of your approach can help you keep your content up-to-date longer. 

Simplified User Interface graphics are great for this application as well. They allow you to avoid frequent updates to your content, such as cases when buttons move around in software applications.

Don’t forget about routine maintenance

While we want our content to be evergreen, even the best content will eventually require updates. 

When this happens, try to edit your existing screenshots instead of a total re-do. Snagit’s library keeps a handy record of past screenshots, which means you can open and edit them as necessary. 

Don’t have your original files? No problem! Just take a screenshot of your screenshot! Snagit has some great options for editing screenshots, such as Smart Move and Replace Text, that will save valuable time. 

Schedule regular check-ins, even if they are only once a year. This will ensure that your content stays up-to-date and has all the necessary steps, even as systems and other variables change. Be sure to get feedback from relevant people in your organization. Others may have valuable insights to share.

Could a job aid be the learning solution that helps your business? 

Empowering your employees with the information they need to level-up is an integral part of managing staff and running a successful business. When you identify problem areas or gaps in knowledge, it only takes a quick Google search to discover the variety of options available to educate your employees.

Online courses and eLearning are popular ways of training. But are they the most suitable for teaching the information you need your employees to know?

Training courses and eLearning solutions aren’t always the silver bullet. These are often costly, time-consuming answers to a problem, and depending on what your employees need to know, it could be a waste of time and money.

Before you invest in any learning solution, consider what your employees need to know. Could it be taught with some illustrative material? Do users need frequent access to easy-to-read materials rather than something they need to commit to memory?

If the answer to any of these is yes, what you might need is a job aid.

Job aids can be instrumental in helping people learn how to complete tasks. In this post, we will share our advice for creating job aids that will work best for your business. 

You can watch the video on this topic at the top of this post, to listen to the podcast episode, hit play below, or read on for more…

What are job aids, exactly? 

A job aid, otherwise known as a “cheat sheet”, is any material that helps you complete a task.

Job aids are essential tools to empower people with useable information to perform tasks independently. They don’t have to be formal or created on any special software. They just have to help the user through a process successfully and in the simplest way possible.

You’re probably already using job aids and don’t even know it. 

A job aid can come in the form of a virtual sticky note on your computer screen, reminding you what your computer login password is. It could be the paper assembly instructions detailing how to build that new desk for your home office. It could be a checklist, an infographic, an app, a print-out, a note scribbled onto a piece of paper – all these have the potential to function as an effective job aid.

Job aids are used over and over again and provide value to a returning user. Designed to be deliberately easy to understand and quick to use. Most importantly, job aids should be convenient to access when needed.

Common examples of job aids include:

• One-pagers
• Cheat sheets
• Paper handouts
• Instructional lists
• Printouts
• Performance support collateral
• Checklists
• Infographics
• Videos
• User manuals

What job aids are NOT

The key word here is “aid”. As in, assist or support. A job aid serves to assist or support staff in completing their assigned tasks by providing a quick reminder of how to do them. Anything that teaches someone how to do something new is a training tool not a job aid.   

A job aid is not a training solution, but rather a reminder of something the employee has been trained on previously and may need a slight memory jog for in order to perform well.   

Job aids are not tools either. Additions to an office that are meant to enhance comfort or efficiency are not job aids. An ergonomic mouse, state of the art lumbar support in an office chair and a standing desk are excellent supports in the workplace but they are not job aids.   

How is a job aid different from job training?

Job aids and job training are both very important components of supporting employee success but the two serve very different purposes. Using a job aid for training is not going to give you the outcome you are hoping for. And using a training tool when what is called for is a job aid will prove ineffcient.

While job training is focused on guiding employees through policies, procedures, software overviews, and other lengthy procedures required to fulfill their job descriptions, job aids act more like refreshers for when an employee needs to complete a very specific task like performing a single operation within a software or having a particularly targeted conversation. 

Job training sets the expectations for success in a role. Job aids help individuals complete specific tasks within their established role. 

How do job aids improve performance?

Training only goes so far, and it only stays in a person’s memory for a short time. When the face-to-face coaching session from a few weeks ago is already growing stale and you hear, “How do I do that task again?”, that’s when job aids shine. They’re available on demand with exactly the information employees need, whenever they need it. 

Both employers and employees have better days when answers are available right away. Instead of having to chase someone down for help, employees have a job aid that shows them the steps required to complete a process. No need to page through layers of documentation to find the exact instructions — a job aid is right next to their workstation so employees can complete the task correctly the first time.

Not only are job aids great at helping employees remember what they’ve learned from a training (such as processes they only need to do occasionally, and don’t need to memorize), they’re also helpful when something changes — for troubleshooting, for example, or to walk through steps of a slightly different workflow of new software versions. 

These efficiencies add up. According to Peregrine Performance Group, companies they work with have replaced a one-week training course with one day of training plus a job aid. Not only is less training needed, proficiency increased by 50%. When you take the time to write an effective job aid, you can expect these types of benefits:

• Save time by getting work tasks done more quickly
• Avoid making mistakes, thanks to having clear directions
• Less employee stress
• Reduce unnecessary back-and-forth help requests
• Better process/standards control by sharing the same knowledge with everyone all at once
• Less training and re-training
• Better employee and customer experience

Plus, they’re quick — job aides can be deployed 75% faster than traditional training, and at a much lower cost, for much better ROI. 

Why your team needs job aids

If you’ve worked on a team before, you know that at some point, without a doubt, tasks come up that are outside of the norm, or that need to be completed by someone who doesn’t normally do them. In these situations job aids make everyone’s life easier. They ensure productivity by taking the guesswork out of the task at hand and freeing up mental space for more pressing responsibilities. 

Avoid communication problems

Communication challenges are a major factor impacting productivity. Whether it’s waiting for questions to be answered or looking up missing information, the impact that communication limbo has on productivity is very real. 

Having a job aid to refer to means that employees can move forward with new or unfamiliar tasks without having to wait for responses or specific verbal instruction. 

Creating job aids helps to reduce the development of silos and dependencies, and increase productivity and effectiveness.

Make knowledge-sharing faster

It happens on an ongoing basis. A new procedure is developed, a task gets passed from one staff member to the next, a new workflow comes into play or some other event requires a quick way to bring everyone up to speed. 

Well, no one wants to spend their time (or their money) in a long training or watching over someone else’s shoulder to learn what to do. If a new policy gets rolled out, everyone needs to know about it of course, but it doesn’t have to take a large investment of time to make that happen. 

Simply creating and sharing a job aid can make the knowledge sharing process so much more efficient and in many cases, it is also more effective 

Spend less time on training programs

Job aids, of course, cannot and should not replace training programs but they can serve as helpful resources that reduce the amount of time spent on those programs. 

Creating job aids can serve as a supplement to your training programs, providing the necessary information for completing specific tasks or processes without having to book time within your training curriculum to cover them.

How to create effective job aids (step-by-step guide)

Just as you would when creating training material, creating job aids needs to be done with a clear goal in mind. It’s also helpful if you follow a structured process – this will create efficiency and consistency which are both very important variables for you and your team.  When you have the right process in place, and you follow it carefully, you will be able to easily create effective aids that your team will be happy to put to use. The job aid creation process should look something like this:

• Define the end user of your job aid
• Gather the required information about the task you’re creating a job aid for
• Decide on the best format to use
• Draft your job aid 
• Test your job aid and gather feedback
• Finalize and implement your job aid

Define your audience

Like any effective communication tool, you need to begin the job aid creation process by clearly identifying who the aid is for.  People with different roles, levels of responsibility and innate skill sets will require different approaches, for example you would take a much different approach to a job aid meant to serve a C-Suite executive than you would one for use in the mail room.

Consider interviewing or surveying the audience in order to get a very clear picture of what they need in order to be successful. Consider how they might best take in information, what the standard tools of their job are, and the level of education they will most likely have achieved. 

Knowing your audience is a key factor in creating job aids that will actually be effective and well utilized.

Gather information

To create a job aid that is effective in reaching its goal, you have to become very familiar with the task you are creating the aid for. You will need to be sure to include all of the inputs needed to complete the task, but you can take it a step further as well. 

Consult with people who do the task you are writing the job aid for. They will be able to provide valuable insight into any common pitfalls, tricky navigation or alternative methods, and potentially even share helpful tips and tricks to assist the end user of the job aid you are writing. 

While gathering as much information as possible will help make sure your end result meets your goal, it’s equally as important to know what not to include in your job aid. Think about what information is needed for the task to be completed and resist the urge to add in any “fluff”.  

Select a format 

Your job aid is only as effective as its presentation allows. There are many job aid formats to choose from and selecting the right one will go a long way in making sure the aid actually gets used. 

If the content and visual presentation of your job aid are not spot on, your audience simply won’t use it. To avoid this, be sure to consider how the aid will be distributed and used, in addition to whether the information can be conveyed better in graphic form than simple text. 

Here are a few examples of common job aid formats to consider:

Step-by-step instructions

Also referred to as the “cookbook” method, this job aid format breaks down each step and presents them in chronological order. This format is great for tasks that don’t lead to multiple outcomes, like how to access a shared network drive.

Flowcharts

Flow charts are an ideal format to use when creating a job aid for a task that has many possible outcomes depending on variables within the process. Users are guided through how to proceed by following steps prescribed based on the preceeding result. Visually, these aids often use arrows or boxes to represent the different paths available. Flow charts work well for tasks like responding to a customer service request.

Reference guides

Reference guides can effectively be used to support more than one process or task.  They serve as a collection of reminders or tips to help employees who are already familiar with the task at hand but who may need a resource to turn to for quick reference. This job aid format is a good choice for things like health and safety reminders. 

Decision tables

Decision tables present the user with a grid to help guide their decision making in processes influenced by multiple variables. Information is clearly compartmentalized and shared using very concise text so that decisions can be made without confusion. These types of job aids are excellent for use in quality control processes. 

Checklists

When writing a job aid for a task with lots of action items or requirements that don’t need to be completed in a particular order, a checklist can be very effective. This format presents all of the associated actions in a list format and users can check them off as they are completed. Checklists are good for use with tasks that need to be completed on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis like closing procedures for a retail store, or month end processes for bookkeeping.

Draft your job aid

Now that you have all the necessary information gathered and you have decided on the perfect format, you can begin to write your job aid! 

It can be very helpful to begin with an outline, so that you make sure the information is organized well and you have the correct order in place. 

Take your screenshots

Job aids that use more visuals than plain text are the most effective. This can feel intimidating but we’ve got an excellent solution. If you haven’t already, download your free trial of Snagit here.  

All you have to do after downloading is push the big red button and select the area on your screen that you want to capture. If the task for which you are creating a job aid is more physical than digital in nature, you can take photos instead.

Annotate

Once you have your screenshots captured, add text, arrows, numbering, or highlights to help make the steps as clear as possible and draw attention to specific portions of the process. Snagit can help you do all of this, and even combine your various screenshots into one document easily. With tools like automated numbering you won’t believe how simple it can be to make clear and effective visual aids with Snagit.

If directions span multiple screens or photos, combine them into one document and add any text around or on top of the visuals.

Have a consistent look 

Be sure to use a consistent style for your job aids. Fonts, colors, and sizes should be consistent and any company branding should be incorporated whenever possible. You can easily create templates for job aids within editing programs to make your process as efficient as possible. If you keep reading you’ll find a free template we have created to help you easily make job aids with a consistent look.

Make it multilingual

Your job aid isn’t going to be effective if people can’t read it. Make sure to consider the languages spoken by the staff you are looking to serve with your job aid and have the resource translated into as many languages as necessary to serve effectively.

Test your job aid and gather feedback

Now that you have created your job aid, there is one more step to complete in order to make sure it is effective. You need to test it!

Send your job aid to a few seasoned employees in the department that wil be using the aid and have them try it out. They will be able to identify whether any steps have been missed or a shorter path through the process is possible. Make any edits that are necessary based on testing before sending the job aid to your team. 

Finalize and implement

Your job aid is ready to be put to use! Distribute it to the team for use and provide clear instruction on when and how to use it.

Ask for feedback once it has been in use for a short time and make edits related to any valuable feedback you receive. 

It’s also important to evaluate the aid’s effectivenes. Check in with managers to see if they are receiving less repetitive questioning, or if customer satisfaction rankings have increased – whatever metric makes most sense for the goal assigned to the job aid.

Bonus: Snagit templates

Still unsure of how to get started with job aids? Let Snagit templates do the work for you!

First, click the Create button and choose Image from Template or select images from the Recent Captures tray, then right click and choose combine in template. You can select whichever templates best suit the needs of your job aid. 

Then, simply drag and drop your images and adjust them within the template. It’s that easy! For a full tutorial on making a job aid with Snagit, watch this great video below:

Job aids FAQ

For most of us, our workdays start with firing up our phones and computers so that we can check our emails, catch up on Slack messages, and look over our task lists. There’s a lot of opening different apps and switching between multiple tools. 

This influx of information can be overwhelming. In fact, a survey by TechSmith found that 50% of the respondents find the number of meetings, emails, and messages during a typical workday makes them less productive. It becomes complicated when every task seems to need your attention at once.

All of this bouncing around between different tools, tasks, and resources is called context switching and it’s taking over a lot of our work time – most of the time without us even knowing it. We’ve gotten so used to context switching that it might seem normal, but it comes with a high cost. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at:

• What context switching is and why we do it
• The cost of context switching
• How to prevent context switching

What is context switching?

Until recently, the term context switching referred exclusively to the process of a computer storing the state of one process so that it could return to it later.  This is what allows us to switch fairly seamlessly from one app or program to another.  

Context switching has now worked its way into our language describing human behavior, referring to our tendency to shift from one task to another unrelated task. 

When we jump between reviewing our email inbox, checking our calendar, and answering a client call we are context-switching. Multitasking is another word we tend to use to describe context switching, though the two terms do have noted differences. 

What we eventually learned about computers is that they struggled when switching tasks. It is becoming clear that there is a real cost to context switching as it applies to human behavior as well. 

Why do we “context switch” all the time?

Even though we know that context switching is not the most efficient approach to working, we still do it all the time.  

This is because context switching has become an unwritten expectation in the modern workforce. The constant perception of urgency and the barrage of notifications constantly interrupting us, as well as the prevalence of sporadic meetings, all keep us in the habit of context-switching. 

We have a false sense of urgency

Whether intentional or not, rapid responsiveness is frequently rewarded in the workplace. This creates the sense that, to succeed, you must adopt a sense of urgency.  

A lot of this perceived urgency centers around communications sent by messaging apps like Slack or Teams.  When a notification comes in indicating a new message, the feeling that a response is required right away is hard to shake. 

Whether we set the expectations ourselves or others set them for us, it’s easy to see the ways that the value of quick responses lends to a sense of urgency which leads to habitual context switching.

We receive notifications constantly

With research showing that 70% of Americans check their phones within 5 minutes of receiving a notification and the average person receiving 65-80 notifications each day, it is clear that this is a major contributor to the persistence of context switching in our daily lives.  

The notifications themselves are not inherently bad, but the challenge is that they have an addictive quality. The rush of dopamine that our minds receive when we get a notification is something we are conditioned to chase. 

Although you might not jump to respond to every notification that your receive, even the acts of recognizing, processing, and deciding on the appropriate action for each one is a type of context switching.  

We attend too many unnecessary meetings

In The Future of Meetings Report 2021, we learn that employees spend 31 hours each month in unproductive meetings and attend, on average, 11 – 15 meetings each week. 

Bouncing between meetings at this rate means it’s hard to find the long stretches of uninterrupted time needed for deep, focused work.

One might combat this hindrance to focused time by initiating “no meeting days” each week, which are dedicated exclusively to focused work. 

One way to protect your time is to initiate “no meeting days” each week. Another is to rethink whether that recurring meeting really needs to happen at all. 

What is the cost of context switching?

The high cost of context switching is a very real thing, but we continue to do it on a regular basis. It has become something that we are so used to that we often don’t even realize we’re doing it.  

On the surface, it seems so innocent – what’s so bad about answering that email quickly before hitting publish on the blog post you’re writing? It can’t possibly be a big deal to answer Sally’s question on Slack while you’re in that meeting; it’s a no-brainer you could answer in your sleep! 

In reality, though, the cost of context switching is significant.  All these small shifts that seem like no big deal really add up. Context switching has a negative impact on your productivity, of course, but the effect of context switching on the human brain actually goes much deeper than that.  

The way we feel at work is negatively impacted by this behavior, as was proven by a study completed at the University of California, Irvine. The study investigated how we feel at work and found reports of significantly heightened stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure after only 20 minutes of repeated interruptions. 

This is problematic because we are constantly interrupted in our daily lives. According to The Anatomy of Work Index, more than one-third of workers feel overwhelmed by the persistent ping of notifications.  

It also gives us some staggering statistics explaining just how common context-switching is in our lives. When it comes to email and video calls, 42% and 40%of people are spending more time on them, respectively, than they were a year ago. 52% of respondents say they are multitasking during virtual meetings more than a year ago and 50% feel the need to respond immediately to notifications. 

These context-switching statistics become even more pronounced when you look at generational differences. Millennials and Gen Z report feeling significantly more overwhelmed than workers overall. 

The cost of context switching can include decreased productivity, short attention spans, wasted time, and burnout. 

Decreased productivity

It should come as no surprise that switching back and forth between tasks makes us less productive – you’ve probably experienced days where you touch many, many tasks and by the end of the day haven’t fully completed a single one.  

Human brains are simply not wired to tackle the amount of context switching we force onto them – according to The Workgeist Report ‘21, 45% of workers say that context switching makes them less productive and 43% say that switching between apps and tools frequently is very tiring. 

Short attention spans

Your full attention does not follow you as you engage in context switching. As you switch from one task to the next, some of your attention remains on the original task, with the remainder following along to the next one. 

As you can imagine, as more and more switches take place, the amount of attention you are left with diminishes significantly. 

This is why you will find yourself having interjected reminders of the tasks that came before – which you still haven’t finished – while you are working on the latest activity. 

Your attention is now divided amongst all the tasks you have touched rather than being focused on the task at hand. Context switching is not what the human brain was designed for, and it’s not ideal for productivity.

Waste of time

In a 2005 study by researchers at The University of California, Irvine, it was shown that it takes, on average, 25 minutes and 26 seconds to fully return to your work following an interruption. 

When we apply that number to the number of interruptions experienced in a typical workday, what that leaves us with is literal hours each day of wasted time. Time spent doing nothing productive but rather attempting to pick up where we had left off.  

There are also time costs to context switching that relate to the stress and fatigue that result from the behavior and cause inefficiencies and do-overs. 

Context switching creates a vicious loop of too many tasks and interruptions coupled with stress and poor performance due to the volume of work.  When we stay stuck in this loop, we continue to waste time. 

In extreme cases: burnout

Our working memory is a necessary component of getting our work done, but it has a limit. We can only hold so much information in front of our minds at once, and we are constantly testing that limit when we spend our days context switching. 

If you’ve ever found yourself rereading the same email multiple times to grasp the information it holds, you have likely experienced the phenomena of brain fog. This is a way of referring to the mental fatigue experienced by the human brain when context switching is taken to an unhealthy level. 

Headaches, loss of motivation, and feeling drained and tired are all signs of burnout. These symptoms can easily begin to creep in when context switching becomes too prevalent in our day-to-day lives. 

How to prevent context switching in the workplace?

Context switching isn’t inherently bad. It’s actually a good thing to have some level of context-switching happening, which is a relief because it’s nearly impossible to eradicate it from our lives. 

The good news is you can implement strategies to help make sure that the context-switching you do is necessary and not done based on false urgency or other common culprits. Here are a few to try! 

Create “focus boundaries” for the day

Practice time-blocking

Focus time is two hours at a minimum of uninterrupted work time. It can be hard to get this time in amongst the notifications and interruptions that regularly pop up. 

A good strategy is to block your time. Go through your calendar and identify a dedicated time for everything. Keep shallow tasks, like checking email and attending meetings, in blocks together and tasks requiring deeper, more focused work together.  It’s the calendar version of “a place for everything and everything in its place.” 

Some email clients and workplace calendars can even automatically schedule blocks of focus time on your calendar.

Set up “themed days”

If you are a manager or your role requires you to work across multiple teams, it may seem intimidating to block your time in such a specific way.  If so, themed days might be a good choice to help you manage context switching.  

With the themed days approach, you assign a function, purpose, or focus to each day in your week. It’s important to make sure you set these up in a way that works well for your specific needs – there isn’t necessarily a one size fits all answer here. 

Would your week work well for you if you dedicated two days to teamwork, one to creative solo projects, and one day to admin? 

Maybe themes like Dan Sullivan’s Free Days, Focus Days, and Buffer Days model would work for you. Try a few methods and see what works best for your unique situation.

Practice single-tasking throughout the day

Setting up your schedule to reduce the cost of context switching only works if you can train yourself to stick with one task for a sufficient amount of time to get into a period of focused work. It is certainly possible, but it takes some intentional habit-building. 

Some of the habits that can support you in single-tasking are:

• Removing distractions
• Setting a timer (and starting small)
• Getting rid of energy drains and “almost done” tasks first

You can’t expect to fully reverse a bad habit like unnecessary context switching overnight, but you can take steps to improve it by creating new supportive habits.

Get rid of “attention residue”

In order to fully devote your attention to a new task, you have to have actually completed the last one. If you haven’t, part of your attention will stay on that unfinished task. 

That leftover sticky piece is what’s referred to as “attention residue,” and it has been proven to be a detriment to starting new tasks.

So how can you get rid of “attention residue”? You can try batching similar tasks together – the human brain has a less difficult time with context switching between like tasks. 

It can also be helpful to build-in routines and rituals to use when you switch tasks – these can act as buffers for your brain and give it a clear signal that it is time to switch gears, which can reduce “attention residue.”

Take regular breaks to recharge

We all have times of high and low energy throughout the day, and what you may notice is that your mind wanders when you are in a period of low energy. This puts you at risk for unintentional context switching, but you can head it off! 

Taking short breaks throughout your day will help to keep your energy up and your mind on task. 

In addition to your standard lunch and coffee breaks, taking microbreaks throughout the day is a great way to keep your energy up and your mind on task. 

Microbreaks can look like a few moments of stretching, a walk around the block, or watching a funny or heartwarming video.  

Incorporating breaks, however, is a great way to keep your energy up and your mind away from the temptation of unnecessary context-switching.

Disconnect from work at the end of the day

Context switching, and its effects on the human brain don’t exist exclusively within the confines of your work day. 

If you don’t disconnect well from work at the end of the day, your brain will be tempted to linger on the activities that transpired, the things left undone, and the tasks awaiting you tomorrow. This can leave you feeling depleted and unable to achieve the focus you will need for the next day. 

To make sure you have a clean break from work at the end of the day and can rest and recuperate for tomorrow’s tasks, there are some routines and tips to try. 

Some people find organizing the work that’s incomplete at the day’s end by adding the relevant next steps to their calendar or to-do list to be a helpful way to stop the consistently running to-do list from taking up residence in their mind in the off hours. 

Others find taking a look at the coming days and their assigned work to help them feel prepared and able to effectively shut work off at the end of the day. Still, others have taken to simply acknowledging that the workday is over and find that to be quite effective. 

Find a method that works well for you and practice until it becomes a habit. 

Take control of notifications

Get rid of unnecessary notifications

Do you actually need all of the notifications your phone and desktop send you?  Probably not – and there are probably a few that you simply tune out at this point. 

It’s a great idea to go through each app you have and assess whether to leave notifications on, turn them off altogether, or adjust the style of notification to be less of a distraction. 

Let’s use Slack as an example of this. Turning off all of the app’s notifications is probably not a great idea, but there are certainly some channels that you don’t need to have push notifications for. 

Silencing notifications on more social channels and keeping them on for direct messages and project-specific channels can go a long way in reducing disruptions while also allowing you to stay aware of the details you need to receive in real-time.  

Completing this exercise with all of your apps can create a lot of beautiful silence in your day and significantly reduce unnecessary context switching.

Take advantage of “Do not disturb” mode

If shutting off notifications altogether makes you a bit nervous, but you still want to avoid the high cost of context switching, “Do not disturb” mode may serve you well.  

With this function (available on both Android and iPhone) rather than silencing notifications from specific apps overall, you silence all notifications for a period of time. 

If you are attempting the time-blocking strategy we discussed earlier, you might choose to use “do not disturb” mode during a block requiring deep and focused work, and rest assured that whatever notifications you believe to be necessary will still make their way to you over the rest of the day.

Plan time to check notifications

Just like you might schedule a time to check your email, it may be helpful to schedule a time to check your notifications. This approach reduces the immediate distraction caused by a notification because you know you have a dedicated block of time set aside to check them. It’s important to actually put this time into your calendar. 

It is also best to note anything that you need to follow up on or take immediate action on that came from your notification checking. 

Relying on your memory can be faulty of course but it also requires some attention to be used up worrying about the memory – since our whole objective is to minimize the divided attention that accompanies context switching, not writing these new tasks down would be counterproductive. 

Context switching FAQs

The past few years have seen a lot of changes to what the rhythm of working looks like. 

Some companies have moved to remote work, while others have made significant changes to how their work weeks are structured. 

The four day work week has had some good reviews but of course, it comes with its own set of challenges as well. In this article, we’ll take a look at this new way of working from all perspectives.

What is a 4 day workweek?

A four day work week is no different than what it sounds like – rather than working the standard five days each week, employees report for only four days of work each week. 

The concept is implemented in various ways across different industries and organizations but is always centered around the practice of attending work for only four days each week.

Where does the 4 day workweek come from?

The concept of working four days a week rather than five is inspired by the fact that employee productivity has increased by up to 5% annually but compensation rates have not increased by more than 2% annually over the same time period.  

The number of hours worked each week has remained at a steady average of up to 43 hours – the four day working week is a way of closing that gap and helping create a better work-life balance at the same time. 

The prevalence of work burnout and anxiety

Anxiety and burnout at work aren’t limited to specific generations though. Asana’s 2022 Anatomy of Work shows that in professions whose primary commodity is information (eg. doctors, engineers, teachers, editors etc), 63% of workers experienced burnout in 2022. 

Burnout and anxiety are very real challenges facing the modern workforce.   

The two generations in the highest support of the four day work week are Millenials and Gen Z, which is easily understood when you consider that 74% and 84% respectively reported that they have experienced burnout.  

The desire for a better work-life balance 

The way employees approach their work and what they expect from their employers is vastly different than it was even 10 years ago. 

Top among their employment priorities is work-life balance, with that detail coming in as more important than even compensation. 

A four-day working week offers the opportunity for an improved work-life balance without the company experiencing ill effects.  

What are the benefits of a 4 Day Work Week?

The four day work week carries many benefits, ranging from productivity to ecological impacts.   

Higher productivity

If you believe that more hours worked per week results in increased productivity, you may be surprised by the results that companies have had by testing the four day work week.  

For example, employees of Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand who participated in a trial four day working week maintained the same productivity as their 5 day norms. And on top of that, they reported higher job satisfaction and company loyalty when working only four days per week.  

It’s easy to think that our local norms are the same as global norms as far as workplace standards – the American dream is built on shift work and 9-5 Monday – Friday work schedules and we are a prosperous nation – that work rhythm must be synonymous with optimal productivity, right?  Wrong.  

The most productive countries, like Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands, see employees following a 27 hour work week for the most part.  

Productivity increases are clearly one of the benefits of working a four day week.   

Better equality

It is certainly not a secret that the struggle for work-life balance lands much more severely on women. 

Nearly 1.2 million women have had to make the choice to leave their employment as a result of their at-home demands. Additionally, more women than men fulfill multiple high-responsibility roles outside of their employment, though the expectations for efficiency and effectiveness at work are of course no different from one gender to another. 

A four day work week holds the possibility of creating a more equitable workplace by allowing more time to be dedicated to life’s responsibilities outside of work.  

This approach could go a long way in allowing women to avoid overwhelm and focus on the priorities in front of them while knowing they will have enough time to give to their other responsibilities as well. 

Better employee engagement

Employee engagement is increasingly on the mind of employers, as it has been a hot topic for the last many years. 

Unengaged employees have lower job satisfaction, lower company loyalty, and often lower productivity, so it is an important area of focus. 

Implementing a four day working week has been shown in multiple trials to boost employee engagement and commitment to an employer by 20%. 

Documented trials have also shown no reduction in productivity with a four day working week – in fact there are often improvements to it. When there are fewer hours available in which to complete tasks and projects, workers are better able to stay focused and engaged on the tasks at hand. 

Sick leaves and mental health days also see reduced usage because there is ample time already incorporated into the week to take care of wellness activities, manage stress, and fulfill pleasurable activities. All of these factors point to a higher level of engagement from employees during the four days that they are at work.

High ecological impact

If remote working isn’t the ideal option for your company, but you want to take steps to make a positive ecological impact, you should know that a reduced carbon footprint can be a four day work week benefit! 

Reducing your work week by one day each week translates to eliminating the effects of a full day’s commute for your workforce. If your four day work week also allows you to shut down your facility on the 5th day, you also reduce all of the energy use associated with the daily operations of your office space. 

Things like lights, computer use, cooling and heating systems, etc. aren’t needed in the same way for an empty building as they are for a building full of staff, so your company’s negative impact can be reduced by around 20%. 

Incorporating a four day work week can have a positive ecological impact in addition to its many employee and productivity benefits. 

What are the downsides of a 4-Day Work Week?

Like all changes, there are negatives to the adoption of a four day work week that fall alongside the positives.  

Complex to implement

Changing something as fundamental as the number of days work is divided over throughout a week is not a simple task. It is bound to impact areas across all departments and management levels, making the implementation of a four day work week quite a complex undertaking.  

Factors to consider specifically include scheduling, policies, communication, and client/customer expectation management among others.  

Communication is a key factor in the rollout of a four day work week and using multiple methods can be really beneficial in ensuring understanding. 

Using video and graphic communication tools during the planning and implementation can help the process be better understood.  Resources like Snagit make it quick and easy to add these tools to you communication protocols and help maximize effectiveness.

Increased pressure with deadlines

There are two angles to consider here. One is employee perception and the other is client/customer behavior. Both of these, though, can be managed through good communication and thorough consideration of all variables during the initial planning and implementation stages. 

Employees can find themselves stressed when trying to meet the same expectations and fulfill the same outcomes with one day less – which may or may not allow fewer hours to work within. 

Before the full integration of the four day work week has been adapted to, employees may feel higher pressure; feeling as though the ask to reach the same outcomes in less time is a net negative.  

Customers/clients who do not work on the same schedule as your team may contribute to feelings of increased pressure, as a message requiring quick response may be sent on a day your team doesn’t work. 

Returning to that might not feel good if expectations and communication about this specific thing have not been clearly articulated or understood. 

Simply communicating with your customers/clients about the schedule and integrating OOO messages or signature line additions can help them understand what they can expect as far as response times. This can take the weight off of your employees as well.

 

Doesn’t work with every industry

Of course, your specific industry may not be a fit for the integration of a four day work week. 

Doctors, nurses, and teachers, for example, would create a lot of negative ripples for their communities by reducing their working days. 

Other industries as well like personal support work, developmental support work, and some types of manufacturing could require significant shifts to how they operate in order to switch to working four days a week. 

This way of working can be greatly beneficial but it is not universally appropriate. 

 A few statistics on the 4 Day Work Week

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 15% of organizations now offer four-day work weeks to some of their employees. This is an increase from the 13% reported in 2017. 

USA Today tells us that 67% more jobs on Ziprecruiter mention four day work weeks than last year. 

A four day work week is the preference of 40% of U.S. workers according to Workforce Institute at Kronos.

On a typical workday, the average office worker in the UK is productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes as reported by Vouchercloud.com. When we apply the 20% increase in productivity tied to many four day work week trials, these employers could see a significant bump to productivity.

Even in 2018, 66% of workers surveyed by Robert Half wanted a compressed workweek but only 17% of their employers offered the option. 

Based on a study from July 2020, 75% of American workers were experiencing burnout. 

Based on the current studies of the four day work week, the approach could help to reduce that unfortunately high number.  

In 2021, the average U.S. worker worked about 38.7 hours per week according to the website Balancethemoney.com.

When Perpetual Guardian introduced a four day work week, their staff reported a drop in stress levels – from 45% prior to the change, to 38% following the change.  

A four day working week helps to attract talent. According to a Henley Business School white paper, 63% of UK employers report this to be true. 

Is the 4 Day Work Week a good fit for your company?

The four day work week is not necessarily the right fit for all businesses and all situations. 

For those it does fit with though, the benefits of a four day work week are plentiful. There are a lot of factors to consider when you are thinking about making this shift.  

Your business model and industry

A four day working week isn’t realistic for all business models and all industries.  

If your work relies heavily on customer interaction, has a high care component, or counts on an impeccably calculated quota being met over the traditional five day model, a compressed work week may not be for you. 

If your work is more related to technology than humans, if most high impact tasks are performed on a computer, and if outcomes are more important than hours worked, then the shift to a four day work week could work quite well.

Would it be profitable?

Like any major business decision, profitability needs to be addressed. 

Be sure to consult with the right departments and the right members of leadership to get a full picture of the implications that switching to a four day work week could have. 

Use the initial conversations on the topic to help determine what areas may require some creative thinking to make profitability possible. 

In workplaces that rely on time being directly exchanged for money, profitability may pose a significant challenge when considering the shift to woking four days a week.

One size doesn’t fit all

There is no one universally effective approach to the flexibility and other benefits created by the four day work week, so be careful not to box yourself in to that single approach. 

There are many ways to incorporate flexibility and better work-life balance for your employees without creating negative impacts for your customers or your bottom line. 

Determine what the desired end result is and work toward a solution that gets you there – it may not be as simple as cutting out one day a week.

Ask your stakeholders

Bring a range of stakeholders into the conversation! 

Hearing from people that are involved with the work, whether internally or externally, will help you start off knowing a wide variety of perspectives and implications. 

Challenges you may never have thought of, as well as benefits that might not have crossed your mind, could be brought to light by engaging a broad group of stakeholders.  

Ask your team

Bring your team into the conversation as early as possible. An activity that is partly meant to boost morale and create a new and better normal for your employees should definitely include their perspective. 

Whether positive or negative, the implications of the change to a four day work week will be largely felt by this group and if you don’t have their buy-in from the get go, snags and difficulties might be harder than necessary to manage. 

And of course, if no one actually wants a four day week, but would prefer a different approach to flexibility and balance, that is a good thing to know before venturing too far down this road!  

How to implement the 4 Day Work Week?

Deciding whether or not the four day work week is a viable option for your workplace is an important step but it is far from the last one! 

There are a lot of considerations to make when implementing the four day work week. Two of the primary ones are a focus on outcomes over hours and the maximization of time. 

Switch to “Outcome-based thinking”

This can be one one of the biggest challenges for companies that shift to working four days a week. 

It is much more common to equate productivity with hours worked than it is to equate it with outcomes and that is a necessary mindset shift for any business looking to become a four day work week company.

Understand your outcomes

Implementing a four day work week requires clarity of expectations above all else. 

Ambiguity leaves room for misinterpretation and unmet outcomes and should be strategically eliminated. 

Setting deadlines, assigning tasks and responsibilities to the correct individual, and clearly defining what the end product / result should look like or accomplish are non-negotiables for making the shift to a four day work week. 

Using visuals in your communication can help to make sure the outcomes are clearly provided to all parties involved. A quick video or mockup can go a long way in getting everyone on the same page. 

Stop micromanaging

Micromanagement is a detriment to literally every good quality associated with the four day work week. 

It fosters burnout, anxiety and low job satisfaction and is almost always a waste of time. The only outcome it works toward is control. 

To make sure you have sufficient information about how the work is progressing, you can incorporate progress reports into workflows or as a standing agenda item in regular meetings.   

Ensure you hired the right skills

Having the right skills working in the right roles and trained well is even more important when we are looking at a four day work week. 

If your team isn’t equipped with the skills necessary to reach the outcomes you have established, the transition won’t go well. 

It can be helpful to evaluate for upskilling and training needs at regular intervals so that you don’t run into situations where the right skills are not available.  

Promote open communication

Although the culture around the four day working week places high value on autonomy, it is still very important for you to be available to your colleagues and your direct reports. 

Empathetic communication from you will result in open communication from them when they run into a problem or are having difficulty adjusting to this new way of working. 

Likely, this open communication will need to start with the leader in order to be fully realized and participated in across the company. 

Maximize everyone’s time

It stands to reason that maximizing everyone’s time is a key component of successfully transitioning to one day less “in the office” each week. That can be easier said than done, so here are some ideas to get you started off well. 

Cut the unnecessary meetings

The “this meeting could have been an email” meme didn’t come out of nowhere. 

There is no shortage of time wasted in meetings that are not necessary, not well run, or not designed for a specific purpose. 

Any meeting time used, particularly when working within a four day work week structure,  should hold a specific stated purpose, and be strictly kept to fulfilling that purpose. Any issues that can be handled in another way, should be.  

If you’re scheduling a meeting to share a status update, present data or any other one-way share of information, record a video in a tool like Snagit instead. 

Prepare, prepare, prepare

In the event that you have deemed a meeting necessary, make sure that you are as prepared as possible to lead the meeting, of course, but let’s also go one step further with that. Give your team everything they will need to be prepared as well. 

What might this look like? Providing a stated goal and agenda at the time of booking, providing any preparatory documents in advance and advising that they should be reviewed prior to the meeting, and making sure that the only people there are the ones who need to be there. 

Appoint a facilitator

When you’re trying to maximize the outcomes met within a four day working week, it is good practice to assign a facilitator for meetings. 

Their function is to guide the meeting along, keeping everything on track. They should be equipped to end circling conversations or “parking lot” discussions and keep the activities running on time. 

Time-box your activities

Time boxing your meeting is a strategy that helps your group to keep moving and also helps them get straight to solution mode. 

You can do this by assigning an amount of time to each item on your agenda and making that time as tight as possible – just enough or even a bit less than you think is reasonable. 

This helps instill a feeling of intensity that can help the brain kick into top gear right off the hop. This is a great way to make sure your meeting hits its target outcome within its assigned amount of time. 

Avoid groupthink

Groupthink is what happens in an open brainstorming session – all of the participants, at least the extroverted ones, are working simultaneously on finding a solution. This can leave out some less confident members of the team and also your introverted colleagues. 

Instead, try implementing a silent solution time where attendees have a set amount of time to write down their ideas to handle the problem at hand and then they all get collected. 

This reduces time spent discussing and circling issues and makes sure you actually get input from all team members, improving the chances of the right solution being found and no further meeting being needed on the topic.

End each meeting with a decision

Your agenda should always include a section of time at the end of the meeting that will be used to confirm the meeting’s results and review any next steps and action items. 

This will help to make sure that everyone leaves knowing exactly what they are responsible for and how the problem is being solved. 

This way everyone can leave the meeting knowing exactly what needs to happen next, with no time wasted revisiting or asking unnecessary questions.

Create and share meeting minutes

In a four day work week company, meeting minutes are even more important than in the traditional work structure because they provide a tangible record of the decisions and outcomes of the meeting. 

They serve as a way for attendees to revisit action items and next steps without taking up the amount of time required for a back and forth communication with colleagues to find the answer. 

This is another place where Snagit can be of great use – meeting minutes don’t have to be just text documents. You can easily incorporate screengrabs from your presentation deck, make annotations to highlight certain points, add text, and link out to other resources – get a free trial right here!