By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady
Two weeks ago, BLR’s founder and CEO Bob Brady, waxed eloquent in this space over the many good things about his iPod®, but also expressed his e-pinion that “serious” workers don’t have talk radio and music on while they work. Most readers disagreed.
I never cease to be amazed at the mind-opening range of responses that this column generates. Although some of you agreed with my no-iPods-at-work thesis (and I’ll report your comments first!) most of you disagreed, and many of you credit your iPods for maintaining your sanity.
Here’s a selection of your comments:
“Just say no … to iPods”
“You bet listening to music, radio, blah, blah, blah, affects productivity!”
“If you are paying people to work they should not use their iPod on work time. We work, then play.”
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“I find it very frustrating when you approach an employee’s desk and because they are listening to the iPod, they don’t even know that you are standing there.”
“I can’t think of any work that could be done while listening to whatever, without some decline in attentiveness that lowers consistent productivity and quality.”
“Get your head out of your headphones and give your employer the day’s work they are paying you for. Wake up and do an honest day of work and be proud of it.”
“A radio-free workplace? I don’t think so.”
By far the bulk of the readers believed that at least some workers do better work with their earphones on. In fact, many think of their iPods as their lifeline to sanity.
“Sitting in a silent office on my own all day with no music or talk radio??!!! May as well send the little men in white coats, because I am off to the funny farm.”
“Even in higher level positions, there is a lot of rote work that doesn’t require enough thought to light a candle—hence radio has saved my sanity.”
“Most days I have commercial-free music playing through my computer at a low volume…just enough to break the horrible silence in the room!”
“Often the routine part of my job is maddening to me. If I have talk radio on, I am encouraged to stay in my seat and finish up what has to be done in less time.”
“Sometimes my boss will make a mess of the formatting on Word documents, and if I didn’t have my ‘white noise’ I couldn’t get through it.”
“If I were not able to listen to classical music at work I would probably kill some of my co-workers. They are constantly talking about their personal lives, which I am not interested in. I use the iPod to block them out.”
“I strenuously disagree. I am a very serious worker and I have my iPod on almost all day playing music. It is ‘white’ noise to me.”
“If I am trying to work in total silence my brain wanders off and the next thing I know I’m making a grocery list. The music occupies the parts of my brain I’m not using at the time.”
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“I was listening to my headphone while I read your email and while I’m typing this response.”
“It drowns out the constant whining and complaining from co-workers and increases my concentration. I’ve seen my productivity go up by as much as 20%.”
“It is an honor system and self evaluation should take place before listening. Will this prohibit you from hearing someone else trying to contact you? Will the device create a safety hazard? Are you a person that can handle this type of sensory stimuli and still be able to perform?”
“… Less likely to say something stupid”
Several readers had more surprising reasons for supporting iPoders:
“People are less likely to say something offensive or stupid if they aren’t talking.”
“Many of us have lived through the nightmare of being forced to listen to music well out of our normal and tolerable genres, so I am personally thankful for the evolution of the boom box to the MP3/IPod.”
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“Actually, my boss approached me to ask if I would mind working with music in the background. He wants to be sure that I can’t overhear conversations of a sensitive nature.”
And finally, one brief rejection of my thesis: “Brains aren’t the same on everyone.”
I guess I’ll have to admit that some people can do some tasks as well or better with an iPod—and I don’t want any readers to lose their sanity—but my iPod still stays home.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to respond. You can still add your thoughts by using the Share Your Comments button below.
All this hoopla about the now almost ubiquitous iPods reminds me of something that occurred to me in the early 1990’s. My boss asked me to come into his office one day where he proceeded to tell me that HIS boss had asked him to “speak” to me about a problem. I was really puzzled by this since I was excellent direct contributor as well as a consistently high rated manager of a sizable group in the corporation. What he told me shocked me. His boss had commissioned a report showing how much time people spent on their computers each day. He was VERY concerned that I spent “all day on the computer.” I asked my boss if his boss understood that that is how we did our work … on the computer. He told me that HE understood perfectly, but was not so sure about his boss. He also told me not to worry about it; that he had just agreed to pass along his Boss’s concerns. As far as my boss was concerned, that was the end of the matter.
So, all of that to just say that I believe many people in management are just uninformed about much of the current technology; that they have some outmoded concepts about how people accomplish their assigned work during a day; or, that it is just something they would find distracting and can’t imagine how anyone else could experience it differently. Out big boss had never even turned on his computer, so he could not conceive of how any of us would use it ALL DAY LONG in accomplishing our work. Eventually, that all changed and he became a user like the rest of us (but not until HIS boss directed him to start checking his e-mail periodically throughout the day).
I have to wonder what it is that people do that leaves them in a quiet room for long periods of time that lead them to feel stir crazy from the silence as I assume most who read the HR Advisor are in HR roles which by their very nature require human interaction. Certain task oriented roles, repetitive in nature not requiring analytical thought or human interaction (phone or in person), may indeed be more productive with the white noise or rhythm of music. However, thinking that music will cover a multitude of sins (“saying stupid things”, “can’t overhear conversations of a sensitive nature”, “next thing I know I’m making a grocery list”….) is ignorant and shows a lack of willingness to effectively deal with issues in the work place in a maner that allows for personal growth and development.
I work in a cube environment and hear people talking all day long and see them walking by my cube in my peripheral vision. It is the MOST distracting thing and it is impossible to concentrate!
I work in HR and the idea was to have me visible to all employees and when I need confidentiality I go to a conference room or an empty office. (That has worked fine, and the employees love having their resource with them.) This is my very first time in a cube and without my headphones, I would never be able to write the training programs I need to, read and correct the policies I need to, verify data the way I need to…etc.
Indeed, some music is more conducive to working than other, but I am responsible enough to know what I can use as white noise to drown-out the background and what is music that will take my attention from my duties at task.
I am an IpodAholic… can’t stand to be without it. However, i think using one at work, unless you are literally alone, is wrong. Countless studies have confirmed that humans don’t really “multi-task”, we just divert our attention to multiple tasks one at a time. What this means is that no one thing is getting all of your attention and I think you owe it to your employer to give your job all of your attention. Plus it is rude if you can’t hear someone talking directly to you. The one positive I got from thse comments is that it drowns out your coworkers discussing their personal lives constantly… that drives me crazy!