Time Study Consulting

Unproductive Hours at Work

The world of work is massively unproductive. Or so reported a Microsoft survey from 2005 that a colleague recently sent me. While a few years old, time study data doesn’t tend to shift much over short periods – the data is still relevant. The survey was based on input from 38,000 people from 200 countries.

In the survey, employees reported work hours of 45 hours per week. This closely matches data from our own time and motion study projects from the last 22 years. Our data shows the average work week is 47 hours, including breaks.

The key finding from the Microsoft study that causes alarm is that employees consider about 17 hours per week to be unproductive. That’s more than a third of the work week!

Some of the common “productivity pitfalls” that were reported include unclear objectives, lack of team communication, ineffective meetings, unclear priorities, and procrastination.

Microsoft is in the technology business, and no doubt a couple of its survey questions were designed to support its mission. Sure enough, 55 percent of respondents said they relate their productivity directly to their software. Not surprising. But wait. That leaves 45% who relate productivity to something else. Whatever that is, it is not about technology. It’s likely that employees are thinking about soft skills that enable them to run better meetings, overcome procrastination, set priorities, and enhance other time management skills.

Those are the skills that get overlooked. An on-line service called Google Trends shows relative search volumes over the past few years – what terms people are interested in. A search on “training” shows a decline from a score of 1.5 in 2004 to a score of about .75 in late 2011. Meanwhile “smart phone” skyrocketed from 1.0 to over 2.0 between 2009 and late 2011. Clearly, smart phones today have a greater appeal than training.

Yet what if everyone who lined up for hours to buy the latest version of a smart phone spent their money on training instead? Something needs to be done to address all those unproductive hours. As we study the use of time, our data confirms that employees are not becoming any more productive in achieving their highest priorities than they were twenty years ago. Much has improved about how we do our work, but there is farther to go. Do we need the latest app? Or should we invest in new training methods to improve personal productivity?

The Perils That No One Predicted

Microsoft has produced a film that portrays the world of work a few years from now. I remember seeing one of these from 1990 – a bright cheery world of the future where a woman talked to a computer in her car while the computer arranged meetings and prepared presentations. At the time I wondered if the world of the future would match the utopian vision. Well, the future has arrived, and it isn’t always pretty.

The reality is quite different. For instance, our work measurement studies show that employees spend 3.2 hours per week reading miscellaneous emails that have nothing to do with their main activities. And many employees spend 30 minutes per week fixing technology problems.

The film omits these and other technological glitches that are part of daily life. When it comes to time management, technology can often hinder as much as it can help. Consider this list of hassles that no one predicted:

• Spam
• Voice mail jail
• Unnecessary emails
• Dropped cell phone calls
• Unwanted telemarketing calls
• Car crashes caused by texting
• Drained batteries
• Ringing phones at movies
• Phone interruptions at restaurants
• Broken web site links
• Computer viruses
• Costly smart phone apps
• Expensive downloading costs
• Identity theft
• Billing problems from service providers
• Help desks that offer no help
• Inadvertent pocket dialing
• Hackers
• Blackberry service interruptions
• Social media obligations
• Advertising everywhere

If the world of today includes all of these things that no one predicted twenty years ago, then the world of the future is just as likely to be fraught with frustrations.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what will make life interesting.

Feel free to add comments with your own hassles.

Four Seconds of Silence Lost Forever

Want to hear the shortest radio program on the air? It’s onCanada’s CBC Radio just before 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. A few seconds before the hour, you’ll hear a countdown consisting of  a series of short beeps from the National Research Council, followed by a period of silence, then a long beep, marking 1:00 p.m. A deep-voiced announcer provides the commentary, short as it is.

Now, about that period of silence. A while back, the gap between the last short beep and the long beep was ten seconds. That’s what the announcer said. “The beginning of the long dash, following ten seconds of silence, marks 1:00 p.m., eastern standard time.” And during those ten seconds, nothing happened. No commercials. No light music. No ticking. Just silence.

But in May of this year, quite suddenly, the silence was shortened. There is no longer a ten-second void between the end of the short beeps and the beginning of the long beep. Now, it’s just six. Yes, only six seconds to savor a quiet, uncluttered, noiseless universe. It doesn’t take a sophisticated time study to conclude that four seconds have been lost forever.

Why the change? More time for radio programming perhaps. But what’s the rush? In our push to speed things up, to squeeze out every bit of valuable time, what happened to silence? Where did the time go for reflection, for calm, for thought?

So now it is time to take back your time. The next time you get a chance, perhaps right now, just take a moment. Better yet, take ten moments. One after the other. And do nothing. Don’t feel the urge to fill the silence with noise. Just sit. Wait. Contemplate. Listen. And enjoy the silence.

Your time is worth it.

(You can hear the old version of the countdown here: )

http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/technology/clips/5772/

The Administrative Time Hog

Managers spend much of their time doing everything but managing. With all of the daily crises, pressures, and trivial tasks that are thrown at them, it is tough for the typical manager to stay focused on the things that are important. So it is not surprising that administrative tasks are a massive time hog. Read more »

Top 10 Time Tamers

How can you become more productive? Here are the most popular and powerful time tips, all in one spot. Read more »