You'd Want Your Boss To Replicate These 9 Workplace Experiments That Ensure Better Productivity

Often, when we are bored of the mundane work life, we take a break. While some people travel, some just prefer staying at home. But what if we tell you that there's a way that you wouldn¡¯t get as bored at work as you do now? Well, we dug up 9 workplace experiments that are an absolute bliss for the corporate industry. Check them out and do show them to your boss.

1. A 4-Day Work Week

Experiment: A company called Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand decided to try out a 4-day work week for two long months. Employees were remunerated the same, without any change and were asked to finish their work within the given four days.

Result: After the 4-day work week trial, staff stress levels lowered 7 percent, and 78 percent said they could manage work-life balance, from only 54 percent pre-trial, reported CNBC. Guess who is asking for a 4-days work week, hun?

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2. The Hawthorne Effect

Experiment: The researchers divided the employees into two focus groups: a control group as well as a group whose environment they adjusted. The researchers, over a period of time, reduced working hours, shuffled break times, improved the lighting at the workplace and switched a few general external environmental factors.

Results: The experiment concluded that employees¡¯ morale was boosted by simply knowing that the company was interested in making changes for their betterment and cared about their work environment and well-being.

3. The Piano Staircase Experiment

Experiment: Volkswagen did a piano staircase experiment in the year 2009 at their Stockholm office. Overnight, they renovated their office¡¯s staircase, which was by coincidence right next to the elevator, into a giant keyboard which was used in the movie Big starring Tom Hanks.

Results: The company concluded that 66 percent of the employees took the musical stairs instead of the elevator. They also claimed that people liked working in a fun environment rather than the usual, worn out office buildings.

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4. Funding People¡¯s Passion Experiment

Experiment: A company named 37Signals decided to fund their employees for their passions, interests, or other curiosities. They wanted to understand how people react when their employees discover new hobbies and have first-time experiences.

Result: 37Signals still hasn¡¯t came out with a definitive result yet, but this experiment sure sounds fun to us. What do you think? Would you like it if it was at your office?

5. The ¡°Work From Home¡± Research

Experiment: A recent research called, ¡®What Leaders Need To Know About Remote Workers¡¯ conducted by TINYpulse asked employees when did they think they were more productive - working from home, remotely, or working at an office.

Result: 91% of participants rated themselves to be more productive when working remotely, according to the findings of this research.

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6. The ¡°Keep Your Employee Happy¡± Research

Experiment: An experiment was conducted in Britain by the Social Market Foundation and the University of Warwick¡¯s Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy, where researchers showed employees a 10 minutes funny video along with snacks and drinks and then measured their happiness levels.

Result: The experiment showed that productivity of the employees increased by an average of 12% and even went as up as 20%.

7. The ¡°Pizza Makes You Productive¡± Study

Experiment: Dan Ariely, a psychologist conducted a research for his book where he sent employees three messages at the beginning of the week to understand what motivates them the most. The first offered them a cash bonus, the second one said their boss would compliment them and the third promised a voucher for free pizza.

Result: As per a report in Independent, after just one day, pizza proved to be the most motivating message, with productivity levels increasing by 6.7 per cent ahead.

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8. The Sleeping Experiment

Experiment: Ben Wisbey, Managing Director of FitSense Australia, conducted an experiment on herself where she compared the relationship between her sleeping habits, her everyday activities and her work productivity.

Result: She wrote in her blog, ¡°My average time spent sleeping each night was 7 hours and 14 minutes. However, I appeared to be most productive when I obtained around 7.5 hours, with a noticeable decline when I slept for less than 6 hours and 45 minutes. My least productive days were associated with only 6.5 hours of sleep.¡±

9. The Gratitude Experiment At Workplace

Experiment: A study of gratitude was conducted by the University of Kentucky. Two control groups were studied - ones who practiced gratitude on a regular basis and ones who didn't.

Result: The control group that practiced gratitude in their everyday work life were more sensitive towards their colleagues and were also less likely to seek revenge when or if they were ever given any negative feedback.

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So which one of these are you going to recommend to your bosses?