Distracted Employees Are Costing You Lots Of Money

In a perfect world, employees show up to work and work all day long. That’s what happens at your office, right? Wrong.

Employees are more distracted than ever. Between personal issues, social media, smartphones, and boredom your distracted employees are wasting time and costing you money. In an article on the HuffingtonPost.com, businesses can lose up to $10,000 per employee per year due to distractions and poorly designed technology. WeekDone.com says that most employes spend 28% of their time dealing with unnecessary interruptions – that’s 2 to 3 hours per day. That’s a huge loss of productivity.

The Internet makes it easy to get distracted. How often have you found yourself engrossed in a two minute video featuring puppies, daydreaming about a tropical paradise, looking at photos of the coolest celebrity hair-dos, or making a personal phone call during business hours? It happens all of the time – even to the most focused people of all. There’s so much info out there and it’s always in our face.

Distractions happen, but if we recognize these distractions we can save time and money. According to CareerBuilder.com, here are the biggest distractions at work:

Cell Phones and Texting
Gossip
Internet Surfing
Social Media
Snack Breaks or Smoke Breaks
Noisy Co-Workers
Meetings
Email
Co-Workers Dropping By
Co-Workers Putting Calls On Speaker Phone

How many of these distractions do you see on a daily basis? If you want to curb these behaviors here are a few things CareerBuilder recommends:

Monitor Emails and Internet Usage
Block Certain Internet Sites
Limit Meetings
Restrict Use Of Speaker Phones If Not In An Office
Prohibit Personal Calls and Cell Phones

We also recommend giving your employees a break and making sure they get to play games at work.

Now let’s be realistic, you’ll never curb all distractions. It would be impossible. People are going to have to deal with personal issues, they may need to use social media at work, or you’re going to have to have a meeting about something or other. All of these things are part of the working world. Do your best to keep your employees focused on the jobs at hand and try to limit distractions as much as possible. When you do, you’re company will thrive.

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