Nowadays, the concerns of business owners and managers go far beyond financial control and sales. To stay competitive and ahead of the competition, the most important points for companies have become the team's efficiency, productivity, and delivery of results.
In this scenario, one of the main problems for team managers is the excessive drop in efficiency and productivity! And this concern seems justified based on a study conducted by the North American portal, Salary.com , involving more than 10,000 employees in the United States. Here are some highlights from the research:
Longer than you think
Given the reality of today's world, where most of our time is spent at work, dedicating part of the day to personal activities is common and does not surprise even employers, who estimated that their employees spend 1 hour/day on activities not related to work.
Human Resources managers, perhaps because they are closer to their employees, are more pessimistic, estimating that employees spend an average of 90 minutes per day on personal activities. The problem is that this amount of wasted time is twice as much as employers imagine. According to the survey, in an eight-hour workday, employees spend an average of two hours per day on personal activities, not including lunch and breaks.
The Internet is the biggest villain!
Employees' inefficient use of time during work hours costs U.S. companies the equivalent of $759 billion annually. Therefore, it's imperative that companies take steps to reduce this idleness, particularly regarding internet misuse.
As you can imagine, the internet is the biggest cause of employee time wastage, as it was the activity indicated by 44.7% of respondents. Personal web use is estimated to cost companies approximately US$330 billion per year.
Other factors also contribute to wasted time at work. The second most frequently cited time-consuming activity at work is socializing with other coworkers, cited by 23.4% of respondents. Next are: managing personal finances and business (6.8%), looking for another job (1.3%), and planning personal activities (1%).
Young people waste more time
When asked why they waste time at work, the majority of 33.2% said they were idle. Just under a quarter of respondents (23.4%) claimed they earn little for the work they do, 14.7% claimed they are distracted by other colleagues, and 12% said they don't have time to deal with personal matters.
An interesting fact is that age seems to influence wasted time. According to the survey, employees over 50 waste only 30 minutes per workday; while those aged 35 to 50 waste 72 minutes/day; those aged 25 to 35 waste 96 minutes/day; and those under 25 waste 2 hours/day on average.
With the Internet being the biggest villain in terms of wasted time, it's only natural that older employees, less accustomed to using it, are the ones who waste the least time during the day on personal activities.
In your company or team, how much do you estimate your employees' time is wasted, and what have you done to reduce this waste? Share your experience with us in the comments!
