Productivity goes hand in hand with the well-being of workers

Productivity refers to the relationship between the products or services a company produces and the resources used to create them. The concepts of productivity and worker well-being often seem to be at odds with each other. A perfect example of this is the memorable scene from the picture "Modern Times," where Charlie, the worker, is literally "swallowed up" by the gears of an assembly line. However, this perception may be changing. Numerous studies show that employees who are happy, or who consider themselves to be happy, improve their performance significantly, as explained by Prof. Silvia Santini, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Informatics of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), in the monthly in-depth article published by laRegione.

The main issue is not just measuring employee satisfaction but addressing stress and dissatisfaction as quickly as possible as soon as they arise. It is no surprise that technology plays a crucial role in helping us with this challenge in today's digitalised world.

At USI Faculty of Informatics, as Professor Silvia Santini explained to us, there is, in fact, "a self-tracking project funded by the Swiss National Fund, which aims to give people the opportunity to monitor themselves with the aim of improving their well-being, and therefore their productivity. There is a connection between physical and mental well-being and productivity, and this connection is bidirectional, as productivity also influences well-being." Yes, because the definition of well-being at work includes objective factors, such as salary or physical health, but also subjective ones, including the feeling of doing something that gives a sense of personal fulfilment.

Understanding how it works is relatively straightforward: "I can give you a simple example: for those who sit for a long time, smartwatches often send notifications reminding them to take a break and move around. This concept is similar to the Pomodoro Technique, a time management system that divides work into intervals, typically lasting 25 minutes. During these intervals, you should focus on your work for 20-25 minutes, followed by a short break. After completing three to four intervals, you should take a longer break." Even if "this pattern applies above all to office jobs", the professor explains, less to those with a greater demand for physical energy. Increasing productivity does not always mean working more hours but instead improving one's performance in the hours available.

In research, of course, more complex instruments are used in addition to movement sensors, "the devices used in our research have sophisticated sensors and can monitor and measure the physiological parameters of the wearer almost continuously, including so-called electrodermal activity, which is the skin's ability to conduct electricity."

We are on the borderline between objectivity and subjectivity because "certain emotional states, such as stress, cause specific physiological reactions" that can be measured. Consequently, "we can observe when stress increases," so perhaps the break should be recommended earlier, or on the contrary, "highlight a state that is defined as flow" (strong concentration), in which there should be no interruptions.

In a nutshell, the research of Professor Santini and her PhD students aims to "monitor both environmental and individual parameters to understand the worker's situation and consequently recommend actions or inhibit others." The aim is precisely to increase psychophysical well-being and preserve high productivity moments.

"We also know that there are different chronotypes of people, meaning some are more productive in the morning while others excel in the afternoon. If an information system were aware of our chronotype, it could recommend scheduling specific activities for the morning and others for the afternoon, or vice versa."

Taking it a step further, "it could even personalise the timetable. If you view work as a result-oriented activity, finishing tasks more quickly allows you to gain more time for other activities, such as recreation, sleep, and rest. This ultimately creates a virtuous cycle."

Working makes you tired, wrote a poet, so rest, sleep and recovery time are important factors for people's physical and mental well-being. This is an aspect that Professor Santini's team cannot ignore. "Some of our work is on the importance of sleep." The result? "Research highlights how a lack of rest is not good for the body or mind, and productivity also suffers."

The challenge in informatics is that "determining what constitutes 'good sleep' depends on factors that are difficult to measure". Moreover, "there is a significant level of subjectivity in how individuals perceive their sleep." As a result, a person's experience upon waking may not always align with the data collected about their sleep patterns. Researchers must, therefore, "mediate between these two types of evidence to develop a model that can accurately predict people's responses." It is essential to "customise the models; there are certainly common characteristics, but in this type of system the need to specialise the models is crucial."

In fact, "artificial Intelligence models draw their strength from having countless data to draw on. However, this only partially works in models for human behaviour, so we are trying to understand if people have common characteristics in how their perception relates to physiological data. At that point we will have a cluster, a group, and we will be able to use that data and improve the model's capacity. Creating clusters and understanding how to generate them is one of the topics we are working on."

"Some models work quite well", albeit with a margin of error; others are less accurate. One of the most reliable applications is monitoring anxiety. The anxious state has distinct physiological characteristics—such as increased heartbeat, altered breathing, and sweating—which can be detected with good accuracy.

"In static and controlled situations," the professor explains, "because if the user becomes agitated, it can confuse the sensor (simply put: if they move, they sweat, but that sweat is due to thermoregulation, not to the anxiety-provoking state)."

Within certain limits, however, interesting results can be obtained. Another example comes from a study conducted a few years ago by USI. "We went to monitor what is referred to as emotional engagement—the emotional involvement students experience during a lesson. Typically, this engagement fluctuates and often declines as the lesson continues. From the teacher's perspective, it would be highly beneficial to identify when this engagement starts to drop significantly. Knowing this would allow the teacher to take action, such as taking a break, introducing an exercise, or sharing a joke, to help reverse this downward trend."

However, nowadays, it is unlikely that an employee who takes several breaks will be viewed favourably. Yet, even in this sector, something is changing. "There are companies," explains the professor, "interested in this approach. Some, for example, have distributed sensory devices to their employees and invited them to use them to promote physical well-being."

There was a guarantee that the employer could not see the data, because one of the most problematic aspects of these devices is that of privacy, confidentiality and the possible use of the data collected. "This is why our project emphasises self-tracking, which is voluntary and autonomous."

Feeling constantly observed does not enhance our sense of well-being. "Absolutely; however, we can guarantee that we can protect and not share the data collected." A little trivia on the subject, "some colleagues from Lausanne tried to understand how willing people are to accept this type of instrumentation based on who will then manage the data." Surprisingly, it turned out that "the willingness to accept monitoring is lower if the data is managed by the employer rather than by a third party company." A barometer of the trust that employees today show towards their superiors...

It should also be said that certain technologies need time to be accepted. This is another reason why Professor Santini insists that "these must be systems geared towards the individual, who uses them because he knows they will make him feel better and be more productive." For many people, salary is not the only factor in their choice, but also "how comfortable I am in the company, because if I feel bad when I go to work in the morning, I'm much more likely to change jobs than someone who doesn't feel any discomfort. So these technologies, combined with the employer's attention to the physical and mental well-being of the employee, could increase the possibility of retaining staff and decreasing turnover."

"This evolution is very important in some sectors, such as IT, so much so that some large companies have acquired start-ups that are working in this very field."