A recent CFO.com article claimed that the financial cost of workplace inactivity to US firms is as much as $130bn. Currently, no such calculations are available for the UK but it would be reasonable to assume that the financial loss would be similarly dramatic.
Analysis of data supplied by salary.com and other sources revealed that the annual cost to US employers of staff who spend a minimum of one hour each week on personal matters can hurt firms’ bottom line to the hundreds of billions.
The research was based on responses from 3,200 employees and revealed that 39% of staff spend less than an hour a week not working, which was taken as acceptable.
However, the remaining 61% said that non-working hours amounted to two hours. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that the average national hourly wage is $16.57 so the cost of ‘lost’ time is $33.14. Multiple that by 61% of people employed (78 million) at 50 weeks a year and the total of $130bn is reached.
The survey also showed that participants feel that meetings are the biggest waste of time in the office.
A recent study by K3 Managed Services showed that 14% of the UK’s workforce spend around 50% of their time surfing the internet for personal use.
On average, 64% of workers waste one hour a day at work while 14% wasted three hours day.
HR professionals have long battled to measure and improve workplace effectiveness but social media as well as ineffectual leadership can counteract poorly designed initiatives. An effective internet usage policy can help outline how employees are expected to use computers and the internet in the workplace. Many firms are also encouraging employees to actively engage in social media through the workplace and putting them off would be counter-productive. However, policies can help address situations where over zealous employees spending too much time tweeting for work.
Above all it may be unreasonable to expect employees to not conduct any ‘personal business’ during the working day but an expectation of ‘give and take’ should be established, so that workers save personal business to breaks where possible or make up time spent during work hours.
Promoting a healthy work/life balance at work is prudent and creating a positive workplace culture is vital to achieving this. Stress is a key factor in workplace inactivity and being able to identify where this is a problem can help address the issue. Happy motivated workers are less likely to take creative breaks to escape stress or monotony.
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