Interruptions at work from the point of view of IT professionals

Abstract

It is a major challenge nowadays to recruit and retain young professionals, especially IT professionals in Europe. Interior designers do their bests to create an office space that is more attractive for the young talents than the competitor's workspace. Modern workstyle is based on communication and collaboration and therefore modern office spaces are designed to support continuous communication and teamwork. In this research, we raise the question how IT professionals fit in this workstyle. The focus of this research is on how IT professionals feel about the different types of communication channels, which are those they identify as hindering factors, and how much their opinion differs from other professionals. During the research, we collected information from questionnaires asking about work environment, communication channels used in the workplace, individual communication preferences, and factors considered as disruptions. The questionnaire was completed by 191 Hungarian office workers from which 63 respondents were IT professionals. The most important result of the research shows that while IT professionals consider personal inquiries useful, many of them are dissatisfied with organized meetings. This research also outlines that IT professionals have an outstanding ability to block out office noise and to focus on work. With the conclusions we make suggestions to the organizations how to improve the communicational environment in order to support work efficiency.