Workplace Technology We’d Like to See

If there’s a universal truth about workplace technology it’s this: We love to complain about it. We complain about how it does what it does, and we complain about how it doesn’t do what we need it to do. We gripe that it too often fails to deliver on its promise, and that it then creates new problems.

But imagine you had a magic wand, and you could create a product to solve some of your biggest workplace issues. What would it be? What would make your job easier and more productive? We asked Wall Street Journal readers and workplace experts to imagine just such a technology—one that doesn’t yet exist except in their minds.

Here are some of their answers.

Email’s Successor

A true replacement for email, one that actually allows for effective collaboration across silos. Every attempt at replacement (Slack, Teams, Zoom) has significant drawbacks (not encrypted, requires signing up for an account, time limits or other gated functionalities). Unless email can be completely replaced by a superior technology—one that can be used across different companies, workspaces, etc.—all new communications systems are added on top of email. (You want to use Teams? Great, now I have to check Teams and email. And Slack. And my text messages.) All of this just compounds the problems of siloed, ineffective and incomplete communications systems like email.

—Erik Love, Carlisle, Pa.

A Personal Network Manager

I would like to see a customer-relationship-management system that makes it easier to facilitate business introductions and manage my own network of professional connections.

For example, if someone asks for an introduction to a CEO I know, I typically first ask the CEO if he or she is open to it, then write a thoughtful and personalized email about the person seeking the introduction. This process can take time. Having a tool or system that automates at least part of this process—say, by providing me with prewritten snippets of background information on my contacts that can easily be inserted into introduction emails—would make the process less time-consuming and burdensome. I would also want this tool to help me keep track of the introductions I have made and where they stand, so that I could follow up and nurture those relationships, as needed.

Helping me keep track of when and how I met the people in my own network also would be valuable. That includes noting any information I learned about the person, such as their kids’ names and ages, who they wanted me to meet, who they wanted to meet in my network, etc. Having this deeper context in one place would make it easier for me to leverage my connections and vice versa.

—Neha Sampat, founder and chief executive of Contentstack, an enterprise software company

VR Meetings

I would like to be able to use VR headsets in Zoom rooms or on other video chat platforms.

—Matt, Farmington, Utah

Take a Page From ‘Monsters, Inc.’

I would like to see a technology that allows employees to connect with others they don’t already know. While there are many upsides of being able to work from anywhere, one of the downsides is how difficult it is to meet new people at work who you don’t have any productivity-related reason to interact with. When you’re in the office with people you naturally bump into people who you don’t directly work with, and as a result have the chance to get to know them and find out what is going on in other parts of the organization. Over time you develop a network of people who you are casually acquainted with, who you can contact when needed without it being an awkward cold call.

I’d like a technology that helps people establish those sorts of connections with co-workers who they never see in an office. For example, you could have a virtual door on your computer screen that you could knock on, like the bedroom doors in the movie “Monsters, Inc.” Each individual could personalize their door design. A new door could appear on each staff member’s screen every day or every week or after all-company meetings—a new person to meet and have a brief conversation with. Systems could be set so every staff member sees doors with some variation of who they want to connect with (e.g., someone from their worksite or their larger group or not in their group—the options are limitless). Knocking on the new virtual door could be set as a cultural expectation, thus reducing the awkwardness that naturally comes from talking with someone new. It would provide the opportunity to meet those from parts of the organization who they wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to meet, and the chance to make connections they would never be able to make otherwise.

—Jennifer Deal, a senior research scientist at the Center for Effective Organizations in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California

A Window Into My Office Desk

I’d like to have a remotely controlled camera positioned to look at my desk, so I can see my desk calendar for notes and reminders, as well as yellow stickies. This would enable me to direct someone in the office to find that missing document.

—Nathan L. Brown, Pensacola, Fla.

Stop the Spam

I would love to see my company filter out spam calls to my business phone before it rings. It’s no wonder people aren’t checking voice mail. It is mostly spam. But when something is important, we still turn to the phone, and if that voice mail is ignored it can mean lost business or worse. Spam is a problem. Important voice mails ignored is also a problem. Stop the spam and send the good calls to email with a transcription where they will be seen.

—Richard Quattrocchi, Rolling Meadows, Ill.

AI as Tutor

Artificial intelligence can be used to help educators in their workplace—and students as well.

First of all, AI could take over the drudge work such as grading assignments and record-keeping. Our educators are in need of all the efficiencies technology can bring.

Second, AI could individualize instruction for each student. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, AI could learn about each child and develop a plan of study for each. Having AI tutors control much of the learning process will leave the teachers with more time to interact meaningfully with the individual students.

And this teaching/learning process could be lifelong for each person, through job and career training and beyond to hobbies and other pursuits.

—John Bobbitt, Richmond, Texas

Meeting Recaps

What would really be beneficial is a new technology that can automatically create searchable transcripts or AI-assisted summaries of meetings held on teleconferencing platforms. This would save those in the meeting the clerical task of taking notes and publishing meeting minutes. It could serve as a backup if questions arise about resolutions achieved and arguments made. Charts, diagrams and statistical data presented during the meetings could be consolidated on the new database to be invented.

—Kenneth C.C. Chan, Melbourne, Australia

Cord Dreams

I have tried buying brightly coloured cords, hiding cords, putting my initials on cords, and threatening awful consequences for unauthorized use, but my power and charging cords still disappear from the spots I swore I put them last. I blame my four-person family and Covid, which upped the ante.

Now, I’m fully working from home, my husband starts his workday from home, our daughter is working her first full-time job remotely and our son has more college classes online in the house than in person on campus. Laptops and phones have become conference tables and lecture halls. Keeping them charged is a priority.

A few weeks ago, when I had an important Zoom meeting starting in five minutes but had spent 20 minutes looking for my laptop charger, I thought, how great it would it be if charger cords couldn’t be used without the owner’s permission?

So, the technology I’d most like to see are chargers I could program to work only on my devices. I would order them in obnoxious colors and leave them out for all to see—but not to snitch!

—Genevieve Chesnut, San Diego

Reading the Room

As we move into year three of our work-from-home experiment, it has become apparent that online meetings are here to stay. This has brought with it a new realization: The technology makes “reading and working the room” significantly harder and potentially career impacting for remote employees.

Things like “sidebar” conversations during quick breaks; walking with colleagues to meetings to get their “pulse” on a topic; strategically sitting next to someone or in a group to show solidarity or weight of presence are no longer possible. Neither are the subtleties of delivery and reception of information: inflections, laughs, sighs and raised eyebrows are controlled or not spontaneous in an online call, and “unmuting” reminds us that we are now “on camera” and prevents the under-one’s-breath utterances that may have been made to nearby colleagues in person-to-person meetings.

If remote meetings are here to stay, Gen 2 online-meeting software has to be more emotionally intelligent.

For example, replace the “celebrity squares” random tile format of a meeting to allow “seating” around a table, in groups or zones. In a meeting of hundreds, it is hard to see if your colleagues are actually present without scrolling through pages.

Ensure that on-platform peer-to-peer messaging is secure, unrecorded and encrypted, allowing for sidebar conversations or even sidebar video that is unavailable to the mainstream audience. This would keep participants on the platform, rather than forcing them to revert to their phones.

Develop participant structures where the speaker is on the main screen, but others in your group could be arranged dynamically via “drag and drop” so reactions can be shared and communicated visually as a cohort. Hosts also need to establish premeeting encrypted breakout rooms for participants who wish to strategize and meet before being “live” in the host’s formal meeting. This would save jumping from one internal meeting or ad hoc phone call before the hosted meeting, improving efficiency and workflow.

—Robert Plant, associate professor at Miami Herbert Business School, University of Miami, in Coral Gables, Fla.

Did your mum ever suggest a warm glass of milk to help you sleep?

Science says she may be right.

An emerging field of research called chrononutrition indicates that choosing the right foods and meal times may improve our sleep . Some key findings: Eat dinner early. Keep consistent schedules. And, yes, drink milk.

You already know that fruits, veggies and lean protein are good for your health. But they can boost your sleep, too. These foods are the basis for the Mediterranean diet, which research shows may improve sleep quality, reduce sleep disturbances and boost sleep efficiency—the amount of time you spend asleep when you are in bed.

Eating a Mediterranean or other similarly healthy diet is linked to a reduction in symptoms of insomnia , according to a just-published review of 37 studies with almost 600,000 participants. This same research also found that unhealthy diets—high in simple carbohydrates and processed foods —are associated with an increase in insomnia symptoms, says Frank Scheer, a professor at Harvard Medical School, who studies the internal body clock.

When we eat affects our internal body clock, or circadian system, which regulates our physiology and behaviour, including sleep. While our master clock resides in our brain, each of our organs has its own clock, too. We don’t want to wake up our stomach just when we’re trying to go to sleep.

“There’s a rhythm to our digestive system,” says Kelly Baron, director of the behavioural sleep medicine program at the University of Utah. “And eating at the wrong time can cause internal jet lag.”

Roughly a third of American adults don’t get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

When Sarah Linderman, 46, started having sleep problems several years ago—tossing and turning for hours before drifting off, then popping awake for good at 3 am — a doctor suggested she focus on her diet.

The doctor recommended she consume more of her calories earlier in the day, load up on protein and veggies, cut back on cocktails at night and finish her last meal at least three hours before bedtime. Linderman soon found herself falling asleep more easily. She also began sleeping seven or eight hours uninterrupted and waking feeling refreshed in the morning.

“With the right nutrition, I took my sleep back,” says Linderman, who owns a marketing company in San Pedro, Calif.

What’s the best way to adjust your diet to improve your sleep? Here’s some advice, according to a growing body of research.

Follow a Mediterranean diet

A diet high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish and unprocessed lean meat is good for nutrition and may promote sleep by reducing inflammation and providing nutrients that boost the neurotransmitter serotonin and the hormone melatonin. It also balances our gut microbiome , which may help regulate our circadian rhythm, says Uma Naidoo, a nutritional psychiatrist and director of nutritional, lifestyle and metabolic psychiatry at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

Some nutrients are particularly helpful.

Tryptophan is an amino acid necessary to produce melatonin. Our bodies can’t produce tryptophan, but foods that provide it include turkey, chickpeas, milk, grains, nuts and seeds.

Serotonin is also a precursor to melatonin. Fruits, vegetables and nuts can help boost serotonin.

Melatonin promotes sleep and influences the timing of the circadian system. Eggs, fatty fish such as salmon, mushrooms, bananas and tart cherries help promote it.

Naidoo’s perfect sleep-promoting dinner suggestion? A mushroom omelet with a side salad topped with flaxseed and walnuts.

Have an early dinner

People who eat close to bedtime have poorer sleep quality, studies show.

Researchers think this may have something to do, in part, with body temperature. Our body typically cools down before bed; this is an important part of our circadian rhythm. Digestion heats our body up, messing with this process.

“Your stomach is working up a sweat just as you’re trying to wind down,” says Marie-Pierre St-Onge, director of the Center of Excellence for Sleep and Circadian Research at Columbia University.

Eating before bed can also cause acid reflux, which often disrupts sleep.

A good rule of thumb, researchers say: Eat dinner at least two to three hours before bedtime to give yourself time to digest your meal.

Be consistent about meal times

Having a regular eating rhythm sends a strong signal to your brain about when it is time to be alert and when it is time to be drowsy, says the University of Utah’s Baron.

Try to eat your first meal and your last meal around the same time each day. “This bookends your day and helps differentiate between waking activities and nighttime,” Baron says.

Eat breakfast

When we don’t eat breakfast, we tend to get hungrier at night. And that sets us up for making poorer food choices closer to bedtime, says St-Onge.

Some studies have shown that people who skip breakfast have lower sleep quality. Researchers aren’t sure why, but they believe it’s because people who eat breakfast tend to practice other healthy habits, such as being more active.

Cut back on alcohol

Yes, alcohol may help you wind down at night and fall asleep faster. But it also messes with your sleep quality . (Do I really need to tell you this?) It suppresses REM sleep, causes sleep disturbances and shortens sleep duration, says Massachusetts General’s Naidoo.

A light evening snack is OK

Hunger is stimulating because the hormones that make you seek food are the same ones that arouse you from sleep, says Columbia’s St-Onge. It’s hard to fall asleep when you’re obsessing about the ice cream in your freezer.

If you eat a snack, make it light and have it at least an hour or so before bed. Pair protein and healthy carbohydrates—hummus and pita or fruit and yogurt—for the biggest sleep boost. Protein is satiating and carbohydrates promote sleepiness by helping the absorption of tryptophan.

And, yes, milk can help, too. A study of people recovering from a cardiovascular event showed that they slept better if they drank milk with honey before bed. And, in general, people who consume more milk throughout the day have better sleep, research shows. Milk is a good source of tryptophan, St-Onge says.

So go ahead and listen to your mum. Have that glass of milk.