by Nigel Leaney, manager of a mental health residential serviceNow it's official. Forget about the need to multi-task before you can consider yourself a competent, worthwhile member of the workforce. The word is out and it is what most sensible people have hoped for since the dreadful word was first coined.
Eating organic bean sprout and carrot ciabatta in one hand, typing the never-sent letter of resignation to your boss with the other while wedging the phone between your jowls and shoulder to explain to your service user that you really are on the way to visit them, is now blessedly passé.
Multi-tasking myth
Recent research from Glenn Wilson at Gresham College, London suggests that multi-tasking causes your IQ to dip and your stress levels to rise. The author of 'The Myth of Multi-tasking' Dave Grenshaw maintains that multi-taskers make more mistakes and take longer to complete tasks as well as jeopardising their mental health to boot.
So relax. Put the superman and wonder woman costumes away until the next party. And don't feel guilty. Plodding is good. Concentrating on one task at a time is ultimately more efficient and makes you less likely to join the 36 million people in Britain who were prescribed anti-depressants last year. That's a 2.1 million increase on the year before that. Certainly the multi-tasking endemic seems responsible for contributing to the vast profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
Workforce suffering
Companies in Britain lose an estimated 12 billion pounds a year due to the workforce suffering with anxiety and depression. Social workers sick leave averages 12 days a year, more than any other public service professional and far higher than the national average of 7.4 days a year.
Work stress can induce clinical depression in previously healthy young people. The more demanding the job, the greater is the risk according to research from Kings College, London. And no doubt in such work environments multi-tasking rules, okay?
Clapped out
Multi-tasking may sound attractive to senior managers who believe they can get one, two three, four tasks done for the price of one person. After all their natty mobile phones can perform an umpteen number of tricks at the same time and still take that call telling them to cut budgets further.
What use to a service user is a stressed out, clapped out care worker who constantly answers his mobile phone during a support visit? With 2,700 social worker vacancies in England the pressure to multi-task to cover the larger gaps within the workforce becomes even greater. Yet the greater propensity for error is now revealed.
And surely we've had enough mistakes in recent years to understand the tragic consequences. One task at a time is the only way to respect the people we are trying to help, and ourselves.
Multi-tasking myth
Recent research from Glenn Wilson at Gresham College, London suggests that multi-tasking causes your IQ to dip and your stress levels to rise. The author of 'The Myth of Multi-tasking' Dave Grenshaw maintains that multi-taskers make more mistakes and take longer to complete tasks as well as jeopardising their mental health to boot.
So relax. Put the superman and wonder woman costumes away until the next party. And don't feel guilty. Plodding is good. Concentrating on one task at a time is ultimately more efficient and makes you less likely to join the 36 million people in Britain who were prescribed anti-depressants last year. That's a 2.1 million increase on the year before that. Certainly the multi-tasking endemic seems responsible for contributing to the vast profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
Workforce suffering
Companies in Britain lose an estimated 12 billion pounds a year due to the workforce suffering with anxiety and depression. Social workers sick leave averages 12 days a year, more than any other public service professional and far higher than the national average of 7.4 days a year.
Work stress can induce clinical depression in previously healthy young people. The more demanding the job, the greater is the risk according to research from Kings College, London. And no doubt in such work environments multi-tasking rules, okay?
Clapped out
Multi-tasking may sound attractive to senior managers who believe they can get one, two three, four tasks done for the price of one person. After all their natty mobile phones can perform an umpteen number of tricks at the same time and still take that call telling them to cut budgets further.
What use to a service user is a stressed out, clapped out care worker who constantly answers his mobile phone during a support visit? With 2,700 social worker vacancies in England the pressure to multi-task to cover the larger gaps within the workforce becomes even greater. Yet the greater propensity for error is now revealed.
And surely we've had enough mistakes in recent years to understand the tragic consequences. One task at a time is the only way to respect the people we are trying to help, and ourselves.
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