Moving Data

Studies have shown that interruptions of all sorts take up around 3 hours of an employee’s workday. There are many things that hinder productivity including working with a single monitor, manually filtering spam, and unmonitored instant messages.

We all agree that there is a level of interruption that is important to keep everything moving forward. According to the Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research,

“. . . once there is an interruption, statistics tell us that it takes 20 minutes to get back to the level of concentration that we were at prior to the disruption. . . social interruption has the highest impact on our ability to return to our original task. We are often placed in a position of being overtly rude or enduring the added stress of missed deadlines . . . caused by well-meaning ‘cubicle intruders’.”

 Social interaction between employees is beneficial in the way it fosters stronger ties among them as well as better teamwork throughout the company. This being said, it should not take up 20%+ of a workday.

Many have speculated that dual monitors or multiple monitors can enhance productivity by 9% to 50%. Even on the low end, this one seems worth it. Invest in an extra monitor for less than $200.00 and make money off of it in a month. Basically, you can keep your employees happier for $200.00

Estimated time saved with an effective Anti-Spam service (which does not require filter tweaking or “white listing”):  26-40 hours. This is a per employee per year average.

• This costs $800.00 to $1,500.00 per employee per year
• This costs a 50 employee company: $40,000.00 to $75,000.00 per year
• Cost to fix the problem? $30.00/year or less per employee

The mother of all interruptions is social interruption, soon followed by calling or instant messaging.  It can take over 20 minutes to return to the level of concentration you were previously  at. All together, it takes you at least 90 seconds to refocus your attention on the person asking the question and the 20 minutes to return to your previous state of concentration.

Internally monitored instant messenger can improve productivity dramatically. Instant messenger only becomes an issue when it’s misused. If rules are enforced and only work related conversation is allowed it can be an extremely effective tool. 

Within our company we have several levels of contact:

1. Low: Instant Message
2. Low-Medium: Email Message
3. Medium: Contact through our CRM
4. Medium-High: Phone Call
5. High/Immediate Response: Walk Into Office

This process keeps employees working their hardest at everything they can without all kinds of interruptions. We have found that our employees are significantly more productive when following the levels of contact. Cost to get an internal IM that can be monitored? It’s FREE at www.psi-im.org

All together it is clear there can be improvements made to optimize productivity in many areas. Some of the most effective ways to improve productivity is just establishing levels of contact associated with priorities. We understand that there are many other issues when it comes to improving productivity, but if we addressed them all this post would be novel-length.

What’s your opinion on productivity? What do you waste the most time on? Comment and let us know.

 

The CCR Team
By Monica Kelly
www.ccr.net