Don’t get stressed out from the nine to five grind in the office, take a break once in a while, learn to be social, have fun, laugh and smile. Our society has created a culture of work, work, work and work some more all the time. We are required to stay connected and put in longer hours. Studies have shown being social and disconnecting from the daily grind makes us more productive.
People think that it is wasting time chatting with co-workers or taking a break here and there is seen as goofing off. We are naturally social so why would you want to put yourself in an introvert scenario in the office where you don’t communicate and have fun?
A MIT group lead by Alexander Pentland, Ph.D. created a way of tracking true social engagement. They created an experiment with a Bank of America call center that placed “sociometers” on badges of employees. These “sociometers” were Bluetooth and infrared devices that measured which employees the test subjects talked to and for how long. The experiment lasted one month and then again for six weeks. The results, employees that took time to chat and be social with each other were more productive, got through the calls quicker, received better approval ratings from peers and felt less stressed.
