50% of Small Business Employees’ Time is Unproductive

Wonder why your employees aren’t getting nearly as much done as you think they should? A new survey finds that employees spend as much as 50 percent of their work day on necessary — yet unproductive tasks — including routine communications and filtering incoming information and correspondence.

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, an online research firm, which conducted the survey with communications company Fonality. “We found that reducing a [workers’] 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.”

The report also found:

•    ‘Knowledge workers’ —those who possess key knowledge necessary to running the company — are among the largest staff component in a typical small business

•    Small business "knowledge workers" spend an estimated 36 percent of their time trying to contact customers, partners or colleagues, find information or schedule a meeting.

•    Approximately 14 percent of small business "knowledge worker" time is spent  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).

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