According to the results of the latest Salary.com 2007 Wasting Time Survey, you probably are. In fact, employees waste approximately 20% of a typical 8.5 hour work day. And guess what – younger employees (ages 20-29) waste anywhere between 10-25% more time than their older colleagues.
So what exactly are employees doing?
* Using the internet for personal needs (34.7%)
* Socializing with coworkers (20.3%)
* Conducting “personal business” (17%)
And why do they do it?
* They don’t have enough work to do (17.7%)
* Their hours are too long (13.9%)
* They are underpaid (11.8%)
* Their work isn’t challenging (11.1%)
Since employee productivity and work environments are such hot issues right now, I’d love to see comparable data for those who telework or leverage flex-time. Moreover, my concern about this data is that it’s purely focused on the quantity of work, not the quality of work. An employee could put in 15 hour days without the “distractions” itemized above, yet a more efficient and highly productive colleague could perhaps produce the same work product in 3 hours time. Are we focused more on attendance than results?
Let’s keep the conversation going.
One Comment
if companies make it compulsory for people to leave office at a particular time for a few days of the week and also assign the empoyees a specific task to be competed for the week then this could be avoided. probably the senior management is itself responsible in a way for the work culture being of like this…coz da senior mgmt. is da one who gives more importance to time rather than quality