Productivity in the workplace is a hot topic these days. With ever-changing economic factors in the world, coupled with fewer bodies actually in offices due to cost-cutting and layoffs, organizations are always looking for new ways to save money and boost their staff’s output. While many business tend to go with the ‘ol “carrot-and-stick” method of either enticing employees to be more productive with a promise of some sort of reward… or being hit with the firing stick, others are beginning to learn that better tools are way more effective at boosting employee workflows. In fact, it’s been proven that you can actually be more productive with your PC by simply upgrading to a widescreen monitor.
Size Does Matter
If your job demands you spend many hours a day staring at a computer screen (and whose doesn’t these days?), then you know a good monitor is one of the best investments you can possibly make. You want a monitor that displays sharp, clear text, right? You want a monitor that can render colours that are crisp and beautiful, too. But, your work monitor should also be big! Why? Well, a study a few years ago actually found that just increasing to a widescreen translates to higher worker productivity. It’s true. The University of Utah partnered with an American monitor-maker to study and quantify if, how and how much time and money could be saved with upgrading. They even compared single, dual-monitor and widescreen setups, to see which would prove best for employee workflows.
Testing them out
Participants were put into three different computer aptitude groups, novice, intermediate, and advanced and measured on the things like the time it took to complete set spreadsheet and editing tasks, editing performance and monitor preference. According to the study, all three groups proved to be way more productive using 24-inch-or-larger widescreen monitors compared to 18-inch traditional displays. In some cases, upgrading from the traditional 18-inch to a 24-inch widescreen cut the average time it took to complete a task by about 30 per cent. But that does make sense. With a bigger screen and wider field of view you will be scrolling left and right, up and down far less. Plus, you can have multiple windows and programs open, with less need to resize everything.
Who Benefits?
Like I said, pretty much everyone is using a computer these days for work, so upgrading to a widescreen monitor is going to do you good regardless of your job. However, think about someone like an IT manager. If you look around an office today, many staff are using a dual-monitor setup… and sometimes three! But upgrading to an equivalent widescreen setup not only boosts the workers’ productivity, but it is also going to cut down on electricity costs, too, because now you have fewer monitors sucking up energy. And if you are a graphic designer or programmer, you will want all that screen real estate so you can have things in high-definition, and have everything open in one easily scan-able place. The study also said screen space improves overall corporate productivity, too. A 250-employee company using 24-inch widescreen monitors could realize an additional 19,000 days of productivity a year. That number rises to 37,892 days for a company of 500 employees. The net annual cost savings after taking into account electricity and monitor costs was $2.1 million for that same 250-employee company and $4.3 million for the 500-employee firm.
All Work and No Play
And let’s not forget that every hard-working Joe also needs a little R&R now and again to keep from burning out. So, a nice big widescreen monitor is also ideal for things like viewing HD movies, or my personal preference, blasting zombies, orcs and bad guys to smithereens in video games. So, if you’re looking to improve your efficiency and comfort both in and out of the office, you can definitely be more productive with your PC by upgrading to a widescreen monitor.
Thoughts…
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