Articles about lost productivity cost companies half a billion dollars in lost productivity.
September 21st, 2007
You have likely come across an article espousing the dollars lost in productivity due to the telephone, email chain letters, water cooler discussions over reality TV shows or auctioning off goods on e-bay. Employees are spending time doing something. That something is not actually producing anything for the company. That time is lost and has cost the company $x dollars.
However, it is surprising that no one has looked at just how these articles themselves are a blow to the economy. One of these articles may take up to fifteen minutes to read. That’s at least a quarter of an hour lost that could have been directed to more important company matters.
Were that but the end of it, but no. These articles tend to push the executive to begin making numerous back of the envelope calculations as they try and figure out what their stock bonus might have been were it not for everyone on their team making calls home or adding people to their linked in contacts. This can easily eat away another hour.
When the dollar amounts on the back of the envelope grow to suitable heights, informal meetings are then called to discuss the problem. To brainstorm work arounds. To try and determine what the offending sources of lost productivity may be and how they may be thwarted. Three hours gone.
Four and a quarter hours of productivity have been lost. Assuming an average hourly rate of $50, this one article has cost American companies $425 million, to accomplish nothing but a lot of mistrust, fear, anger and anxiety. Consider how a handful of these articles would lead to billions in lost productivity.
Should the executive decide to actually crackdown on the assumed time waster, we now have to factor in the costs of enacting the policy change, time lost to many a frustrated water cooler pow wow about how boneheaded management is, hours lost as employees attempt to circumvent whatever block is in place, and eventual costs to reverse the policy as it was discovered the tools blocked are actually more enabling to the bulk of employees than the two or three time wasters amongst the lot. Our data does not track each of these costs, but one can imagine they can easily push the lost productivity into the trillions.
The best way to avoid these costs is to not incur them. Executives forearmed with the knowledge that the articles are nothing but sensational sources of fear, uncertainty and doubt can skip them and move on the day’s Dilbert strip.
Source of data: Satire & Jape Research, bogus numbers for all your corporate needs.
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All of this is my overblown and roundabout way of linking to Shel Holtz’s campaign to stop the blocking. www.stopblocking.org. Go to the wiki to learn more about the issue and contribute your own knowledge and understanding on the subject.
