We live in a world of excessive digital stimuli. Simply turning on our computers or phones bombards us with news, information, and activities that are creating a massive screen addiction. This high number of hours online, especially for those working remotely, causes significant harm to the focus and mental health of brilliant talents who end up operating on autopilot, like professional zombies.
In this scenario, HR plays a crucial role in ensuring technology works in our favor, creating connections and maintaining everyone’s quality of life—even from a distance.
The amount of time Brazilians spend connected is shocking. They spend over 90 hours a week immersed in the online world, according to IBGE data, largely due to the rise of remote work, which has kept us in front of computers much longer. The result, however, is quite negative for our health, increasing cases of anxiety, overload, and—worse—diminishing real-life connections among teams.
Capturing people’s attention is becoming increasingly difficult, making the attention economy highly scarce and valuable in our society. This is precisely where HR steps in as a guardian of balance between personal and professional life in naturally fast-paced environments impacted by technological advancements—promoting healthy disconnection practices and advocating for boundaries in this digital space.
Whether through workshops, lectures, mentoring, or other activities, HR must educate leaders about these online boundaries, organizing ongoing discussions on topics like the importance of not sending work messages outside business hours, scheduling meetings in advance for preparation, encouraging breaks during the workday, and promoting internal marketing moments that focus on non-work topics.
These issues must be integrated into company policies, not just remain as ‘nice speeches.’ After all, digital platforms are designed to capture our eyes and minds—and when this happens at work, we lose what we need most to create value for companies: focus.
We cannot create zombie professionals, exhausted by the daily overload of information they receive, who consequently fail to produce quality results. They will always be online but never truly present, making attention the most valuable currency in the market today—even a competitive advantage given how rare it has become.
The human resources department plays an essential role in promoting more humanized and close-knit people management. It must act as a curator of attention, creating initiatives that foster better team relationships while filtering out noise that disrupts this greater goal. Helping people intelligently allocate energy in their work routines improves not only their performance but also their quality of life and work-life balance.
