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A new survey from America Online (AOL) and Salary.com found that the average American worker wastes 2 hours and 5 minutes a day, which cumulatively adds up to $759 billion a year in lost productivity.
Not surprisingly, the top time waster was Web surfing, with workplace socializing coming in at number two. “Applying for other jobs” came seventh place on the list.
The survey solicited reasons as to why employees wasted time. The most popular reason was not having enough to do while not being paid enough came in second place. In this regard the sticker axiom, “They pretend to pay me and I pretend to work,” comes to mind.

Top time-wasting activities include:

• Personal Internet Use including emailing
• Socializing with co-workers
• Conducting personal business
• Spacing out
• Running errands

Top reasons for wasting time:

• Don’t have enough work to do
• Underpaid for the work I do
• Co-workers distract me
• Not enough evening or weekend time
• Other

This amount of “paid leave” shouldn’t catch employers completely off-guard. Employers do expect workers to waste 1 hour a day plus lunch and actually calculate that into their salary structure.
But workers say they actually waste 2-plus hours a day…and this doesn’t include the time they believe they spend in pointless meetings or carrying out inane requests from their boss(es) or waiting for a response from customer service, shipping, vendors, co-workers or their bosses. Add to this the projects and tasks that are delayed or messed up as a result of turnover, vacations, and vacancies, not to mention sheer stupidity and lack of motivation.

The top time-wasting industries were:

• Insurance workers – 2.5 hours wasted per day
• Public sector workers – 2.4 hours
• Research and development – 2.3 hours
• Education – 2.2 hours
• Software and Internet – 2.2 hours

source: American Online, survey.com, Success Performance Solutions

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LONDON: Employees who fritter time away on Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites are costing British businesses billions, new research suggests.

British employment website MyJobGroup.co.uk said it polled 1,000 British workers and found that nearly 65%, or two million, of Britain’s 34 million-strong workforce spent over an hour per day on social media while at work, amounting to more than one eighth of their entire working day.

“Our results clearly show that UK workers are spending increased time while at work on social media networks, which, left unchecked, could have negative repercussions on the productivity of many companies across the country,” Myjobgroup.co.uk managing director Lee Fayer said in a statement with the results of the survey.

MyJobGroup.co.uk said work time lost on Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks could potentially be costing Britain up to £14bil.

The research showed more than half of British workers (55%) confessed to accessing social media profiles at work, with many spending so much time friending, tweeting, adding photos and video, as well as updating their profiles, that companies’ productivity was suffering as a result.

Despite the negative effects on the economy in the midst of a fragile recovery, many workers polled were in denial about the ill-effects of social media on their efficiency. Only 14% of respondents admitted to being less productive as a result of social media and 10% even claimed social media had made them more productive.

What’s more, there was still widespread resistance to banning access to social networks at work, with over two thirds (68%) advocating some form of access during working hours.

Only one third wanted sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube barred during work time, demonstrating the growing importance of social media to the daily routine and the widespread resistance to its access being limited.

“While we’re certainly not kill-joys, people spending over an hour per day in work time on the likes of Facebook and Twitter are seriously hampering companies’ efforts to boost productivity, which is more important than ever given the fragile state of our economy,” Fayer said. — Reuters

Source: The Star Biz

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