An empirical study to evaluate the impact of mindfulness on helpdesk employees

• Published in: Science of computer programming Vol. 230; p. 102977
• Main Authors: Bernárdez, Beatriz, Panach, José Ignacio, Parejo, José A., Durán, Amador, Juristo, Natalia, Ruiz-Cortés, Antonio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.08.2023
• Subjects: Helpdesk; Human factors; Industry experiment; KPI; MAAS; Mindfulness; Helpdesk; Mindfulness; KPI; Industry experiment; MAAS; Human factors
• ISSN: 0167-6423; 1872-7964
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scico.2023.102977

Purpose: Mindfulness is a meditation technique whose main goal involves maintaining a calm mind and training attention by focusing only on a single thing (the support) at a time; this support is usually the practitioner's breathing. The practice of mindfulness aims to improve concentration and attention, which has proven useful in knowledge-intensive and stressful work environments like technological companies. This article aims to find empirical evidence on the positive effect of the practice of mindfulness on a sample of 56 helpdesk employees working for a consulting and information technology company (Accenture) with respect to: i) their attention awareness; ii) a set of key performance indicators (KPIs); and iii) the perceived benefits of mindfulness. Method: Of the 56 recruited employees, 29 worked as managers, and 27 worked as agents answering phone calls to solve software issues of the main information system of the Andalusian Health Service, a public organization with more than 115,000 employees. Mindfulness (the treatment) was applied to 26 subjects, while the other 30 subjects were the control group. For all subjects, their attention awareness was measured using the MAAS scale. Results: Both helpdesk managers and agents significantly improved their attention awareness with respect to the control group. Regarding organizational KPIs, in general, no evidence of significant differences between groups was detected, apart from the fact that the number of phone calls answered was significantly lower in the mindfulness group, probably due to a longer call duration caused by a deliberate better attention to the customer, but without degrading any other KPI. With respect to the perceived benefits of the treatment, the questionnaires show relevant improvements perceived by most employees after practicing mindfulness.Conclusions: We confirm that mindfulness improves attention awareness and benefits the working and personal life of helpdesk employees. However, further research is needed to identify a clear impact on productivity. •An industrial experiment carried out in a complex helpdesk of Accenture is presented.•Accenture defines a set of KPIs to measure the productivity of its helpdesk agents.•Impact of mindfulness practice on agents' attention-awareness and productivity is evaluated.•The experiment reveals that 6 six weeks of practice of mindfulness improve the attention-awareness of helpdesk agents.•Regarding KPIs, only the number of phone calls answered was significantly lower, but without degrading any other KPI.