In an ideal world, your employees would put forth 100 percent effort throughout every minute of every day. Unfortunately, this is an unrealistic expectation, and your staff can quickly get caught up in time-wasting activities if you’re not careful. In fact, “a 2013 study found that 69 percent of employees waste time at work every single day.”
Common Reasons Employees Waste Time
In order to minimize this unproductive behavior, it’s important to understand the psychology behind why employees waste time. Studies have found some of the top reasons, and they are as follows:
- 34% of employees say they are not challenged
- 34% say they work long hours
- 32% say there’s no incentive to work harder
- 30% are unsatisfied with work
- 23% are just plain bored
- 18% say it’s due to low wages
Here are some of the top time-wasting red flags to keep an eye out for so that you can nip minor problems before they become major.
Excessive Use of Technology
Technology is a bit of a double-edged sword due to the fact that it can both increase and inhibit productivity. The problem is that many employees can get caught up checking their social media accounts, surfing the web and so on to excess until it ultimately diminishes their productivity.
Smartphones can also be a catalyst for this because they enable employees to engage in these activities with ease. If you’re finding your staff glued to their smartphones at all hours of the day, this is a definite red flag.
Chronic Excuses
When it becomes apparent that your employees are constantly making excuses for not meeting deadlines, not hitting their quotas, etc., chances are good there are some time-wasting activities going on. Often the reason for making excuses is simply because a work-related task wasn’t a priority and engaging in a productivity-draining activity was.
Lack of Engagement
If you notice that your staff fails to take initiative on projects, isn’t collaborating or aren’t working with one another to reach goals, this is usually a sign of disengagement. This is problematic because it means that your employees’ hearts aren’t in it, which often translates into poor productivity.
The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging you have one. By knowing which behaviors to look out for, you should be able to identify time-wasting red flags and take measures to correct them before they get out of hand.
Learn more on how to extract the most from your staff by reading the rest of the Encadria blog.