How Workers Waste Time on Smartphones: Survey

RMN Digital | June 10, 2016 | Opinion, Surveys | No Comments

While technology helps workers stay connected while away from the office, in many cases it is causing them to disconnect while in the office, leading to a negative impact on productivity.

According to new CareerBuilder research, 1 in 5 employers (19 percent) think workers are productive less than five hours a day. When looking for a culprit, more than half of employers (55 percent) say that workers’ mobile phones / texting are to blame.

The survey reveals that 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.

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“While we need to be connected to devices for work, we’re also a click away from alluring distractions from our personal lives like social media and various other apps,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder.

“The connectivity conundrum isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be managed. Have an open dialogue with employees about tech distractions. Acknowledge their existence and discuss challenges / solutions to keeping productivity up.”

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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 sneak 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

The Craziest Non-Work Activities Workers Have Done On the Job

Employers were also asked to reveal the most unusual or most memorable things they have caught an employee doing when they should have been working. Some examples included:

Employee was working on a scrapbook.
Employee was decorating a cubicle with chains of paper clips.
Employee brought her equipment for her embroidery business from home and was making items for a craft show to sell.
Employee was doing doughnuts in the parking lot in the snow.
Employee brought in a kitten she found outside and tried to keep it quiet within a large purse.
Employee was working on her child’s school project that included uncooked macaroni noodles.
Employee was laying on a patient’s bed talking to the patient while the patient sat in her wheelchair
Employee was watching YouTube videos of people shoving marshmallows in their mouth.
Employee was doing some personal grooming in the break room.
Employee was searching on craigslist for dates.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder between February 10 and March 17, 2016. It included a representative sample of 2,186 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,031 full time U.S. workers in the private sector across industries and company sizes. The survey findings were released Thursday.