Mitigating workday fragmentation in knowledge work – task management skill training intervention

In this paper, a workplace training intervention for mitigating negative work performance and psychological work wellbeing effects of work fragmentation in knowledge work is described and its effects examined. Voluntary employees of a governmental organization participated the study. A training intervention aimed to enhance participants’ daily work planning, task management and information ergonomics skills and practices. The results of the study revealed that four months after the intervention, the experiences of negative work fragmentation were significantly lower in the intervention group than before the intervention. There was positive changes also in the experiences of task management effectiveness and self-rated performance after the intervention. In addition, the task management practices that were trained in the intervention were more widely and regularly applied after the intervention than before the intervention. Based on the results of this study, training intervention for enhancing task management is a reasonable means to mitigate negative effects of work fragmentation in knowledge work.