The effect of overflow at workplace on employees productivity and being

The constant inflow of e-mail messages, documents or the need to deal with workplace procedures has resulted in many employees being exposed to information overload. Experiencing overload can be problematic from an organizational perspective diminishing the accuracy of decision-making, personal well-being, levels of experienced stress, job satisfaction, but also decision making, innovation, productivity, and fulfillment of job responsibilities. Two studies investigated the effect of overflow induced by email segregating task on cognitive performance and physiological markers of stress and cognitive load: heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). In Study #1. 134 participants were assigned to the overflow or control conditions and their subjective feeling of overload and cognitive performance were measured. In the overload condition participants reported higher levels of overload and exhibited lower levels of cognitive performance in a subsequent task as measured by mean response time and number of errors in the Stroop task. In Study #2. Twelve participants completed 3 sessions consisting of 3 tasks each. HRV was lower during the overflow task than during baseline indicating a greater cognitive load during the overflow condition. This effect did not diminish with repeated exposure to the overflow task. HR decreased during subsequent overflow tasks relative to baseline indicating the within-session habituation of stress in response to repeated exposures to the overflow task. Participants’ self-response regarding core affect showed no difference between the overflow tasks relative to baseline. This indicates that physiological measurement of overflow may provide insight into monitoring overflow not available with questionnaire methods. Negative consequences of overloading are very important from the point of view of the organization, because impairment of cognitive tasks can translate into worse decision making and more mistakes made by employees, while a decrease in heart rate variability can lead to health consequences.