Bosses think that their employees are wasting too much time on their smartphones, not surprisingly, those workers disagree.
There’s no question that technology helps remote workers stay connected while away from the office, but a new study shows that same technology is actually is causing them to disconnect while in the office, leading to a negative impact on productivity.
According to CareerBuilder, 1 in 5 employers (19 percent) think workers are productive less than five hours a day and when looking to assign blame, more than half of those employers (55 percent) say that workers’ mobile phones are to blame.
More than 8 in 10 workers (83 percent) have smartphones, and 82 percent of those with smartphones keep them within eye contact at work. And while only 10 percent of those with smartphones say it’s decreasing their productivity at work, 2 in 3 (66 percent) say they use it (at least) several times a day while working.
Wasting Time at Work
When asked to name the biggest productivity killers in the workplace, employers cited cell phones/texting, followed by the Internet and workplace gossip:
- Cell phone/texting: 55 percent
- The Internet: 41 percent
- Gossip: 39 percent
- Social media: 37 percent
- Co-workers dropping by: 27 percent
- Smoke breaks or snack breaks: 27 percent
- Email: 26 percent
- Meetings: 24 percent
- Noisy co-workers: 20 percent
- Sitting in a cubicle: 9 percent
The majority of workers with smartphones (65 percent) do not have their work emails on their smartphones. Of those who access their smartphone during work for non-work use, they spend their time on these non-work related sites during work:
- Personal messaging: 65 percent
- Weather: 51 percent
- News: 44 percent
- Games: 24 percent
- Shopping: 24 percent
- Traffic: 12 percent
- Gossip: 7 percent
- Sales: 6 percent
- Adult: 4 percent
- Dating: 3 percent
The High Costs of Low Productivity
Three in four employers (75 percent) say two or more hours a day are lost in productivity because employees are distracted. Forty-three percent say at least three hours a day are lost. Productivity killers can lead to negative consequences for the organization, including:
- Compromised quality of work: 48 percent
- Lower morale because other workers have to pick up the slack: 38 percent
- Negative impact on boss/employee relationship: 28 percent
- Missed deadlines: 27 percent
- Loss in revenue: 26 percent
- Negative impact on client relationships: 20 percent
More than 3 in 4 employers (76 percent) have taken at least one step to mitigate productivity killers, such as blocking certain Internet sites (32 percent) and banning personal calls/cell phone use (26 percent). Other efforts to mitigate productivity killers include:
- Schedule lunch and break times: 24 percent
- Monitor emails and Internet usage: 19 percent
- Limit meetings: 17 percent
- Allow people to telecommute: 14 percent
- Have an open space layout instead of cubicles: 14 percent
- Restrict use of speakerphones if not in an office: 13 percent
- Increase height of cubicle walls to make it easier to concentrate: 8 percent
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