By Dr. Marty Martin bio
Wearable technology is hot! Wearable tech is also increasingly becoming cool and fashionable. Professional athletes and weekend warriors are outfitting themselves with devices to measure their heart rate, blood pressure, count their steps and calories, as well as track the quality of their sleep. With the health and performance of their staff in mind, will employers begin to hand out wearables during new employee orientation along with the mission statement, personnel policies and benefit descriptions? It is too early in the wearable revolution to tell, but if managers are focused on increasing performance, then it is likely that wearables will be distributed to new employees along with smartphones and personal computers.
The goal of managers has long been raising the performance of individuals, groups and teams at work. Boards of directors hold CEOs accountable for increasing performance and boards compensate CEOs and executives for improving it. Technology, from the steam shovel to spreadsheet software, has been used as a tool to increasing performance. Wearable technology has proved effective in enhancing the performance of athletes, so it is reasonable to conclude that it can enhance the performance of workers as well.
Many of the gains in productivity in the United States have occurred because of workers not working harder, but smarter, with the aid of technology such as computers. This utilization of technology has been leveraged as a driver of enhanced performance.
Education, better health and overall improved well-being have contributed to gains in productivity. As such, wearables that encourage and foster those factors hold out the promise of positively influencing performance.
Performance, Productivity and Efficiency: The Same or Different?
What is the difference between performance and productivity? When you meet or exceed an expectation, then you have achieved the expectation. Performance describes this achievement. Performance can also be relative when comparing how one team achieves in contrast to another team.
Productivity, on the other hand, is how much you accomplish in a period of time. In short, productivity is a measure of output. Efficiency is often confused with productivity. The two are related but they are not the same. Efficiency is achievement per unit of input. In other words, if you accomplish more (productivity) with the same or fewer inputs (resources), then you are efficient. Wearables serve as drivers of performance and productivity because the insights gleaned from the technology will enable managers and workers to know what makes them both more effective and efficient.
Tune into Your Body with Wearable Tech
There’s no wizardry at work with wearables, but the incredible physiological feedback that is generated from the sensors embedded in clothing and accessories may contribute to the notion that there are magical forces at work.
Wearable technology has two streams: descriptive and predictive. The descriptive stream simply informs the wearer of what has happened. For instance, you are presenting at a monthly meeting and notice that your heart rate is accelerating. This wearable alarm signals that you are probably under stress. As such, this may cause you to take a deep breath or engage in whatever behavior that works for you to take the edge off the stress.
As the technology advances, wearables can utilize information to alert you to potential problems even before you become consciously aware of them, such as sweating due to a stress reaction. In short, these sensors increasingly will function as your “early detection radar systems” to alert you to possible problems and dangers which may be prevented if you have enough advanced warning and know to how to intervene or alter your behavior.
Workplace Wearables: True Benefits or Media Hype?
Similar to other technologies, the media and advertisers promote all of the cool features and purported benefits. Before you decide to fork over a hundred dollars or more, consider the following benefits organized into these categories:
- Physiological
- Psychological
- Social
Physiological
- Tracking biometric data (e.g. pulse, sleep quality) to reveal patterns.
- Displaying patterns of patterns of biometric data to use as a baseline to develop goals for change.
Psychological
- Displaying patterns of patterns of biometric data to use as a baseline to develop goals for change.
- Receiving acknowledgment, recognition, and reinforcement based upon parameters set by the user.
Social
- Sharing goals, data and achievements with others to establish accountability and signal rewards.
- Connecting with others to promote healthy competition.
Benefits for Managers
Beyond the benefits to users, there are also benefits to managers and employers including the following:
- Measure and track performance.
- Improve performance.
- Reduce the healthcare utilization of covered workers.
- Shorten the time it takes to get workers out on disability or workers’ compensation back to work and functioning at 100% capacity.
- Redesign jobs, processes and workflows.
- Enhance occupational safety and health.
- Modify staffing based upon data.
Getting the Most Out of Wearables: Recommendations for Users, Managers, and Employers
Wearables are not magical devices. In other words, millions of Americans will not suddenly lose weight, engage in more physical activity, and eat less salty, fatty foods or sleep the recommended 7-8 hours each night without their devices in the bed with them. For most of us who own a wearable or are contemplating making this purchase, it is essential to remember that a wearable is a technological tool to be used to enable us to achieve specific goals ranging from workplace performance goals to health goals.
To increase your chances of achieving your goals, you must be sure to remember to accomplish the following:
- Be focused not overly ambitious, that is, only select 1-2 goals to work on.
- Write your goals down in writing.
- Display your goals in a place where you can see them at least on a daily basis if not more.
- Identify whether healthy competition motivates you or whether you prefer to work your goals by yourself.
- Incorporate some “reward” for yourself for not achieving your goal but engaging in the behavior that will result in the goal. For instance, if you want to walk 70,000 steps each week, then reward yourself before you reach the 70,000 steps.
- Imagine that you have accomplished your goal and specific how you plan to celebrate your accomplishment.
Conclusion
Some of you may remember when exercise bikes and treadmills hit the market. There was a rush to buy the latest equipment to improve our health and physique. For many of us, this fitness equipment became expensive clothes hangers. Be sure that your wearables do not become fashion accessories rather than tools to help you achieve your goals or the goals of your employees.
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