Multitasking becoming a bigger part of construction workers’ jobs

With increasing demands placed on the modern construction industry, and skills shortages growing, multitasking is becoming a bigger part of construction workers’ jobs, according to new research from specialist recruiter Randstad CPE.

The number of daily distractions affecting construction workers has increased by 66% since 2013, with the trend towards multitasking having been faster in construction than across the rest of the UK workforce. 90% of construction jobs now require some form of multitasking, and construction workers now report being distracted from a key task on average five times a day – regaining momentum after such an interruption can take more than 20 minutes.

Randstad CPE suggests two solutions. Project managers facing digital distractions can maintain their productivity by changing their environment to move temptation further away – shutting down emails and silencing phones to focus on the prioritized task. Additionally, clustering similar activities together allows construction workers to keep time spent on transitions to a minimum.

Owen Goodhead, managing director of Randstad Construction, Property & Engineering, comments: “Workers are underestimating the damage multitasking can do to their productivity. If they saw how it impaired their IQ and how much time they were losing when they drop everything and switch activities and had to restart tasks, people would be more likely to look for, and adopt, solutions – especially in construction hotspots like Cambridge, Yorkshire or London. The problem is employees don’t necessarily appreciate how hard multitasking can degrade their clarity of thought – its makes heavy demands on us.”

Adapted from source by Rebecca Bowden. Source: Randstad CPE

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/30092015/multitasking-bigger-part-of-construction-workers-jobs-693/