Wasted days and wasted nights

Some of you old-timers probably remember the Freddy Fender hit that was popular in the ’70s called Wasted Days and Wasted Nights. In the song, the late Mr. Fender lamented the futility of a jilted love affair. The title could loosely apply to the efficiency of the modern day workforce as managers lament the productivity of their employees.

In a survey of human resource managers, they assumed that employees waste 0.94 hours per day, which is what they take into account when they do their compensation planning. However, they privately suspected that workers waste 1.6 hours per day, which is 20 percent of the time.

According to a 2005 survey by American Online and Salary.com, the average American employee admits to wasting away 2.09 hours each workday—that’s over one-fourth of the day. And that doesn’t include lunch and scheduled break-time. To put it another way, approximately $759 billion per year is wasted on salaries for which no actual work was performed.

We’re not aware of any study that has been done in the CNMI, but we would suspect that 2 hours per day would be pretty conservative; especially in government offices if you factor in arriving late, extended breaks and lunchtime, as well as those individuals who are missing in action.

Where do people waste most of their time? Industrial analysts estimate that information workers spend up to 30 percent of their time looking for data. The biggest distraction for workers, though, is surfing the Net for personal use (44.7 percent). Socializing with co-workers comes in second (23.4 percent), and conducting personal business is a distant third (6.8 percent). Just spacing out, applying for other jobs, planning personal events, and personal phone calls were some other popular time-wasting activities.

If you, as a manager or business owner, are lamenting the wasted days, your employees are not totally at fault. In a survey of employees, 33.2 percent of them cited the lack of work as their biggest reason for wasting time. This is especially true if you are a micromanager who has to have everything approved through you before someone can proceed. If employees complete their work and feel penalized for taking the initiative to do something else, then they will create busywork to keep from getting in trouble.

In another study of business productivity performance, Proudfoot Consulting of Britain revealed that 37 percent of all working time is effectively wasted. About three-fourths of this time is a result of management’s poor planning or inadequate supervision of workers. Their report highlighted that even larger firms are failing in the most basic aspects of organizational efficiency. In a similar survey of 800 senior executives, they are aware of these inadequacies but have not been able to effectively deal with ineffective management and work processes, and improve worker supervision.

Another 23.4 percent of employees said they wasted their time at work because they feel underpaid. This could be a big factor here with minimum wage at $4.05 and prices skyrocketing. It’s becoming more difficult to make ends meet on a meager salary, and workers may justify giving less than 100 percent because they’re getting paid less than what they feel they’re worth.

Co-worker distractions represent 14.7 percent of wasted time. It’s estimated that the average person gets interrupted every 8 minutes, or approximately 50 to 60 times per day, and 80 percent of those interruptions are typically rated as “little value” or “no value” to the company.

The lack of productivity steals away not only time, but dollars from the bottom line. It usually results in sloppy results that create greater customer dissatisfaction, higher turnover, and lower profits. Employees who have perfected the art of wasting time tend to recruit others to pick up their practice, which then produces a “wasted days” cycle that is difficult to break.

It is critical for both employees and managers to improve their productivity by discouraging activities that are time wasters. Make sure everyone understands their responsibilities, knows the goals and objectives of the organization, has the resources to complete their work, and receives recognition for their efforts. Those who refuse to stop wasting their own time and the time of other’s should be given the opportunity to pursue another career path.

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