Employees spend half the day on unproductive tasks: Study

Bangalore: Employees in small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) spend 50 percent of their work day on necessary, yet unproductive tasks, reveals a new report from business communications company Fonality and research firm Webtorials. Workers spend their time on routine communications and filtering incoming information and correspondence. The study explains that knowledge workers are among the largest staff component in a typical SMB and they spend an estimated 36 percent of their time trying to contact customers, partners or colleagues; find information, and schedule meetings etc. It’s also found that approximately 14 percent of SMB knowledge workers’ time is spent on duplicating information (e.g. forwarding e-mails or phone calls to confirm if fax/e-mail/text message was received) and managing unwanted communications (e.g. spam e-mails or unsolicited time-wasting phone calls). “No one has examined the impact of inefficient communications on small and mid-size business, and the findings are not only stunning, but they point to a need for immediate change,” said Steve Taylor, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher for Webtorials. “We found that reducing a Knowledge Worker’s unproductive time by 25 percent can yield an extra six weeks in productivity each year, per employee, which should be an immediate call to action for business owners,” he said. The best solution offered is that unified communications, especially cloud-based with its lower total cost of ownership, could eliminate much of this productivity shortfall. Dean Mansfield, President and CEO of Fonality said, “Now, the emerging intersection of cloud technologies, with mobility applications and Unified Communications, makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to share information faster and more effectively than ever.”