How do you motivate your staff when working remotely? Simple: play them some songs.
The loans provider Transmit Startups came up with a playlist using scientific studies that showed listening to the right music can contribute to work performance, happy songs can make people 23 per cent more creative and upbeat tunes can help them to perform repetitive tasks faster
Its findings included these nuggets:
- Songs with heavier bass lines are proven to be more empowering
- Weightless by Marconi Union can reduce anxiety by 65%
- Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons (Op. 8 No. 1, RV 269, “Spring”: I. Allegro) can make you 23% more creative
- Playing rock music in the background when you’re focusing can improve cognitive performance
- Dance music can increase proof-reading speed by 20%
They also spoke to music therapy expert, Marianne Rizkallah the Director of North London Music Therapy. She explained: “Music can help us through challenging times by attempting to change our mood or can affirm or complement our inner feelings.
“Music can put us in touch with what we’re feeling at a deeper level, help us connect emotionally to our thoughts and bring us to a place of greater understanding about ourselves.”
Transmit Startups, a national delivery partner of the government-backed Start Up Loans Company, also revealed that listening to the rapper, 50 Cent can almost double your confidence before a pitch.
Researchers from The Society for Personality and Social Psychology split participants into two groups. One listened to a ‘high-power’ music playlist (consisting of We Will Rock You – Queen, Get Ready for This – 2 Unlimited, and In Da Club – 50 Cent). The other group listened to similar songs but identified as ‘low-power’ from a previous survey.
When the high-power group was shown a word fragment like P _ _ ER, they were more likely to complete the fragment as POWER, yet those listening to the low-power music, often completed it as PAPER.
In another experiment candidates were asked if they would prefer to go first or second in a debate. Those who listened to the high-power music chose to go first almost twice as much than those who listened to the low-power one.
Details of the research can be found here