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Topic: IT Priorities

Jive survey examines some costlier distractions at work

Summary: Interestingly, vacation really doesn't appear to be as much of a problem as many American employees might assume.

Rachel King

By for Between the Lines |

Some of the most-talked about concerns in business technology these days have to do with security and risk management.

But a new survey from Jive Software hints that some workplace problems are a lot more basic than that.

According to the social business company's new study, the way people "work today" isn't actually working. In fact, most of the common habits related to tech and productivity in the workplace are actually costing businesses more money.

To get a little more concrete, email was cited as one of the major culprits standing in the way of productivity.

Researchers found that nearly four out of every five workers (or 79 percent) admitted that they spend much of their workdays checking email when that time could be put to use on other projects.

Thus, Jive asserted that time wasted is costing U.S. companies up to $2 billion per day on average.

Some of the other major distractions include other coworkers (36 percent) and meetings (19 percent).

Interestingly, vacation really doesn't appear to be as much of a problem as many American employees might assume.

The problem there might actually be finding a work/life balance considering 48 percent of employed Americans were described to be working while on vacation.

Topics: IT Priorities, Apps, Collaboration, IT Employment, IT Policies

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  • Exactly

    During the decades I spent working at companies, my primary time sinks were the continuous stream of inane emails which required immediate responses, and the vast number of pointless meetings. For most of those meetings, we met and parroted the same progress updates which we had already emailed to everyone. In a nutshell, we wasted vast hours so a lazy, mid-level manager could feed his ego by having a room full of people bending to his will. The most annoying part of this productivity-killing corporate routine was that they wasted 30-40% of our available time and then complained when the project slipped past the deadline by 10%.

    The most productive team I ever worked on had a manager who ran interference for his team, insisting that the development team spend minimal time responding to emails and attending meetings. Instead, he took on the burden of answering the majority of emails and attending all the endless meetings for us. They allowed this manager to do this because his teams always produced better results than any of the others. Sadly, it never occurred to them to make this management system the default rather than the exception within the company. They justified our alternative team style because we were the A-team, but they might have had a dozen A-teams if they managed them all the same way. There is a dearth of critical thinking skills among the top leadership of corporations in this country.
    BillDem
    Reply 1 Vote

  • why would anybody assume vacation is a problem?

    "Interestingly, vacation really doesn't appear to be as much of a problem as many American employees might assume. "

    Vacations are usually based on company policy - so the business has pretty much full control so that they *can't* get out of control. Why would they ever be considered a problem?
    CobraA1
    Reply 1 Vote
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