Have you ever reached the end of an 8-hour work day and felt like you didn’t really accomplish anything?

An overly complex work environment can saturate employees’ time with exhausting tasks that “need to get done” but aren’t actually very productive and don’t provide satisfaction. Is it possible that an overload of meetings, presentations, and emails could actually be counterproductive? It seems so.

Check out these thought-provoking stats:

• Of the 100 billion+ emails that are exchanged each day, only one in seven is critically important.
• On average, employees spend more than a quarter of the workday reading and responding to emails.
• The average person checks his cell phone more than 150 times a day.
• Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015 report documented that 74% of HR and business leaders characterized their work environment as either “complex” or “highly complex.”

So what is causing the complexity that seems to be slowing us down?

Why is complexity an issue?

The #1 reason: The increasing penetration of technology in the workplace.

While technology has certainly made many things faster and more convenient, it has also increased the number of things that come our way asking for attention. Josh Bersin, Founder of Bersin by Deloitte, explained, “with mobile phones, email, text messages, global teams, conference calls, social media, and pretty soon even watches talking at us, there is so much stuff coming at us, we are constantly flooded and can’t get our work done, and we feel less productive than we were in the past.”

The ease of communication brought about by technology has also created an expectation of constant availability. Employees always have their smartphones now, so phone calls and emails don’t have to stop at 5:00PM. By nature, people become addicted to the stimuli of screens and technology. Many never take a substantial break, and end up feeling like they’re “always at work.”

In addition, technology is ever-changing. Software quickly becomes outdated, and new features come out faster than some people can learn them.

Reason #2: Globalization

The majority of companies work with clients, suppliers, etc. in places all over the world. While this is great for business, globalization does increase organizations’ complexity. Because of these connections, many employees have calls, emails, or meetings at unusual hours of the day or night.

Reason #3: Administrative compliance demands

Overly complex compliance systems take excessive amounts of time and engagement. Research by Deloitte Australia shows that “financial services firms that focus on culture instead of compliance systems have better compliance. The research believes $240 billion is wasted on overly-complex compliance systems which could be replaced by a ‘culture of compliance‘.” This is a world-wide problem; Deloitte Australia also found that 1/11 people in Australia in 2015 worked in a compliance role, more than in the country’s entire mining industry.

Reason #4: Overly complex business processes

Research has shown that many companies’ business and HR processes are  overly complex. For example, Adobe found that it took a whopping 1.8 million person-hours per year to complete its performance management process.

Negative impact of complexity

When employees are burdened with seemingly endless emails, meetings, rules, and complex business processes, the negative results abound. Employees can end up feeling disengaged and defeated, which decreases morale and in turn decreases overall productivity, ultimately costing the company money.

When managers make simplification a critical component of their business strategies, productivity does increase. SAP recently launched a major new strategy to simplify its business, and saw employee engagement rise by almost 30%.

So what can be done to simplify the workplace?

Ways to simplify

There are several strategies a company can implement to simplify, and they do not have to be done in a specific order. Evaluate your organization and determine what is most needed and where the biggest differences could be made most quickly.

• Make a list of priorities and figure out what is really important and what isn’t urgently needed. Add to and reassess this list on a regular basis to be sure you’re working on the right things.
• Do away with unnecessary rules, steps, and activities that waste time more than they benefit the company. Shedding even just a few superfluous tasks will decrease stress and enable employees to focus on more important duties. Assess core processes such as approval procedures, presentation decks, and expense reports, and minimize the number of steps, making for maximum efficiency possible.
• Encourage and use open, honest, and constructive feedback to identify and make changes to poor meeting management, lack of clarity in assignments, redundant emails, etc. Don’t just involve managers in the process of simplification—get ideas even from the little guys. Ask employees about the processes that waste/complicate their time and ask for their ideas on ways to simplify the company.
• Simplify the structure of your company. Reduce levels and layers of management to prevent excessive supervision, micromanaging, and over-analysis.
• Reduce the number of emails, meetings, and conference calls in order to maximize employees’ focus and productivity.
• Make meetings shorter if possible. Begin meetings on time, make sure everyone comes prepared, and stay on topic to ensure efficiency. Learn more about improving meetings here.
• Invest in simpler technology. Select software based on ease of use, and not just exciting new features. Check with employees to see what systems they struggle with and if additional training is required.

Leadership and HR must drive changes toward simplicity. HR’s role should include advising the business on ways to save time, increase productivity, and increase employee engagement. It is not enough for one employee to try and make changes. A company must be unified in its efforts to minimize complexity; unity in and of itself is a strategy to make a company more simple. Streamline your organization as much as possible and see productivity increase!