Wasting Time and Money at Work

The office environment is a funny thing. Personally, besides being a content producer for the lovely Associated Content website, I'm also a real estate agent. The sales position is commission only; therefore the time that I waste at work is only hurting my wallet. For the salaried individuals of the world, the office environment offers that of an adult playground. For hours at a time, employees are huddled around their computers or cubicles surfing the Internet, downloading funny videos, chatting it up on their favorite message board, or prank calling other employees on the speaker phone. While it's fun for the employee, however, it is ruffling some major moral and financial feathers with the bosses.

In fact, out of the average work shift of eight hours, it is estimated that employees spend over two hours of their day wasting time at work. Also, this does not include break time. So if each employee in a 100 employee company wastes two hours a day at work and the average salary is $35,000, well that's just more math than I can wrap my head around. Needless to say, a lot of company greenery is at stake here. It is estimated that nearly $800 billion dollars per year are spent on salaries for the work they hired, but that doesn't always necessarily mean it was performed. A rough estimate for total dollars actually wasted equals to $200 billion dollars, or approximately one quarter of the total based on work production lost. Wow. Management's not going to be happy about this one.

You may be wondering what exactly these salaried employees are doing while they're at work, right? Because, we all know you've never been guilty of taking a few minutes to check your Myspace account. Though socializing with other co-workers isn't classified as the top distraction, I feel strongly that this is the worst disruption. If you're not busy with work, and you take the time out to distract another from doing their work, the company is now wasting money on two individuals instead of one. For instance, ever noticed a small group of individuals huddled around a cubicle in your office talking about the games over the weekend or the latest Lost episode? This is terrible for work production. Of course, in every office there is a small gang of underachieving employees that urge others to "come to the bad side." Work, to these types of people, has turned into more of a social opportunity rather than fulfilling everyday duties required by the company. I admit that in my current job I've been known to flock to these groups in my desperate attempts to procrastinate from picking up the phone.

The Internet has been both a blessing and a nuisance since it has been introduced to the work environment. E-mails have revolutionized the way we communicate with others, and access onto the Intranets and Extranets has improved supply chain management all over the world. It's the downtime that hurts our productivity. For instance, if an employee has a few minutes between projects, they may check their email on different accounts. This, in return, will lead to browsing different sites, different news stories, and different daily updates. Before the employee knows it, thirty minutes have clicked off the clock and their excuse to the manager is, "I'm loaded down with work. I'll get to that file tomorrow." But we all know tomorrow will repeat these same steps, and the vicious circle presents itself.

There are a number of other time-wasting activities that contribute to lack of production, such as making personal phone calls, spacing out for minutes at a time, or taking time off to run personal errands. Making personal phone calls is expected from management, however, it should not be abused by the employees. Management doesn't expect for its employee to not have contact with family members throughout the day, but when conversations are leading to what they're having for dinner or what television shows are coming on that night then it's become a problem. Phone calls are easy for a company to monitor. As for spacing out, I'll be the first to admit that when I've been invested in paperwork for two hours at a time then I need a break. Sometimes I'll just sit and stare at a wall, while other times I rest my head in my hand and find myself drifting off. Again, this is expected from management, except for the whole drifting off thing. Personal errands aren't necessarily a large problem because most jobs don't allow the employees the flexibility to leave work for a period of time. However, on a commission based job employees abuse this freedom and choose to do grocery shopping when they should really be typing up reports.

In this modern world of attention deficit disorders, it's easy for employees to be distracted. However, it is the responsibility of management in each company to keep a closer eye on its employees, as well as monitor their work progress. Whether this means overloading an individual with work or having a full-time manager roam the floors, this has become a serious issue and must be dealt with accordingly.