Why & How Remote Employees Waste Time

Don’t think your employees are wasting time? Check out these statistics that provide insight on how employees get sidetracked on the job every single day.

A Salary.com survey analyzed how all those wasted work hours are drained; here’s what they discovered from their 3,200 respondents:

They’re Checking Social Media and other Sites

• 41 percent visit Facebook
• 37 percent check Linkedin
• 31 head to Yahoo!
• 28 percent engage on Google+
• 25 percent are hunting on Amazon
• Only 8 percent are visiting Twitter, though.

Why Aren’t Employees More Productive? Why Waste time?

• 35 percent need more challenges at work
• 34 percent feel that they work too many hours
• 32 percent don’t see any benefits to being more productive (working harder)
• 30 percent are just not satisfied
• 23 percent are bored
• 18 percent said they aren’t paid enough

Who is Wasting the Most Time?

• 69 percent of men surf the ‘net for “personal reasons” during work hours
• 62 percent of women report the same
• 26-35 year-olds waste the most time (75 percent admitted to surfing the web for personal reasons)
• 72 percent of 18-25 year-olds surf the internet outside of work duties

Just How Much Time is Being Wasted at Work?

• About 2/3 or employees surveyed admitted to lack of productivity (i.e. wasting time)
• 39 percent only spend about an hour or less per week on behaviors that aren’t related to their job
• 29 spend two hours each week on non-related computer time
• 21 percent waste about five hours for activities unrelated to work each week
• 3 percent waste more than 10 hours each week

Time Theft Also Happens in the Most Unsuspecting Ways

Quartz broke down all the other ways that workers are wasting time; the publication cited the American Time Use Survey (the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Some of the self-admitted time wasters are common and might not even be on your radar as a time waste!

• More than 45 percent of those surveyed were eating/drinking on the job
• 22.3 percent were working on a different job!
• 8 percent were just chilling (i.e. “relaxing and thinking”)
• 5.8 percent were socializing
• 1.6. percent were engaging in some fun reading
• 1.5 percent were queuing up movies or shows
• 1.3 percent were working on the computer for fun (not work)
• 1.1 percent were just hanging around
• 1.1 percent were using tobacco…or DRUGS!
• 0.8 percent took a walk
• 0.6 percent engaged in travel related to work
• 0.4 percent were prepping snacks (food and drink)
• 0.4 percent were playing games
• 0.4 percent were doing research for a class

Use InterGuard to monitor their productivity and to better understand how time waste may be impacting your bottom line.