October 16 – Do you have a small business? Are you wondering about the productivity of your workers?
It might be a good idea to keep an eye out on what your workers are focused on throughout the day.
A recent report has shown the average number of small business employees spend 11 hours a week just drafting emails.
In addition to that, even a three minute distraction can disrupt the time it takes to complete a project. A worker who has been distracted for just three minutes can take up to 20 minutes to get back into a project.
All of this must make businesses question time spent off task and the efficiency of offices around the country.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM suggested, “Get the heck out of the office. Go out and see people and get on with business. Sitting behind the computer and thinking that you’re accomplishing something, I get a couple of emails back and forth here, but good grief. What a tremendous loss in productivity.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll agreed, “It’s incredible, isn’t it? Last week, I sent an email to an attorney in Carlisle and I thought it was really interesting. You get those auto responses if someone’s out of the office. Her auto response was she only checks email now twice per day. She didn’t say what hours that is, but the message was, you may not get a quick response because I only check emails twice a day. People can get too tethered to these email systems and platforms and I think that study is confirming it. You can get just absorbed in email, and of course if you let it, you can do this at night, on weekends, holidays. That platform, that pipeline is always open. I think there’s even studies that show you’re much more productive when you’re not behind the desk, when you’re out of the office, out meeting with people, or out doing stuff other than responding to emails.”
