When your employees come to work, you want them to focus on work-related tasks. To eliminate distractions, you may prevent employees from using their cell phones during the workday and ask your employees to keep their desktops clear of apps and icons.
Although it sounds like a good idea to prevent your employees from accessing apps on various devices throughout the day, the truth is that visiting apps can actually be good for you and your employees.
Table of Contents
Collaboration
How do your employees communicate with each other? If they have to wait until the next meeting or they have to walk over and talk to a coworker in person, you’ll find that many ideas fall by the wayside. Even having access to email isn’t enough. Not everyone in the office does a good job of keeping track of what’s in their inbox.
Successful team collaboration means providing employees with an app that allows them to communicate in an instant. They should be able to send messages to each other quickly and informally. This enables everyone to ask questions whenever they pop up, bring up concerns, and share ideas immediately, so everyone has a chance to talk through them before they end up getting forgotten.
Even if your employees aren’t using specific collaboration software to communicate, they may use other platforms to communicate with each other, so letting them have access to their apps is vital to workplace communication.
Motivation and Inspiration
It’s easy to get stuck in your own little bubble at work. Sitting at the same desk, seeing the same people in the office, and completing the same work tasks day-in and day-out doesn’t leave very much room for inspiration and motivation. Apps can help!
Some apps come with positive mantras, tips for managing tasks and help to focus. Other apps can help you and your employees think about problems in new ways and encourage you to get creative.
Even social media can help! Employees can suddenly become inspired by seeing a picture on Instagram or a video on Facebook. Inspiration and motivation can come from all kinds of apps, so make sure employees can keep them handy!
It Demonstrates Trust
Trust is extremely important in the workplace. With trust, employees are more likely to be vulnerable at work, which means sharing their thoughts and ideas without worrying about being made fun of, dismissed, or reprimanded. Building trust in the workplace is complex, but an easy way to get started is to enable your employees to access all of their apps without restriction.
Allowing your employees access to all of their apps on their cell phone and desktop computer communicates your trust in their ability to get work done without the need to micromanage their activities while they’re on the clock. When you extend that trust, your employees are likely to reward you by giving their all at work.
It Can Encourage Breaks
Although it may sound nice to have a workforce that plows through the day getting as much work done as humanly possible, the truth is that it’s much better to take breaks because they:
- Boost physical and emotional health
- Prevent decision fatigue
- Restore motivation
- Increase productivity and creativity
- Help consolidate memories and improve learning
You may not be able to make employees take breaks, but if they have access to all of their apps, they will likely want to take their breaks anyway. If they can check their Facebook or Instagram accounts, they may be willing to go for a little walk and take their mind off of work for a few minutes by getting lost in an app.
Helps Them Take Care of Personal Matters
You may want all of your employees to leave their personal matters at home, but that’s just not possible. From scheduling appointments to paying bills, there are things that your employees need to do during the day while they’re at work. Make it easier for them by allowing them to have unlimited access to all of their apps. When you do, they won’t have to take a day off of work just to get personal administrative work done.
You may wish you could take away all distractions so your employees can focus, but removing access to their apps could have the opposite effect. From communicating in the office to feeling motivated and taking breaks, apps actually have the ability to make your employees more comfortable and productive in the office!
