CareerBuilder Study Reveals Top Ten Productivity Killers at Work

Employers Share Most Unusual Things They Caught Employees Doing When They Should Have Been Working

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Jun 12, 2014, 06:00 ET

CHICAGO, June 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- What causes workers to waste the most time at the office? Texting? Surfing the Web? Chatting with co-workers around the water cooler? New research from CareerBuilder identifies behaviors that employers say are the biggest productivity killers in the workplace. The study also highlights some of the strangest things employers have caught employees doing while on the clock.

View infographic here.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from February 10 to March 4, 2014, and included a representative sample of 2,138 hiring managers and human resource professionals, and a representative sample of 3,022 full-time, private sector workers across industries and company sizes.

Not surprisingly, personal use of technology is one of the leading culprits behind unproductive activity at work. One in four workers (24 percent) admitted that, during a typical workday, they will spend at least one hour a day on personal calls, emails or texts. Twenty-one percent estimate that they spend one hour or more during a typical workday searching the Internet for non-work-related information, photos, etc.

Behaviors of co-workers, meetings and other factors are also creating obstacles to maximizing performance. When asked what they consider to be the primary productivity stoppers in the workplace, employers pointed to:

Cell phone/texting – 50 percent
Gossip – 42 percent
The Internet – 39 percent
Social media – 38 percent
Snack breaks or smoke breaks – 27 percent
Noisy co-workers – 24 percent
Meetings – 23 percent
Email – 23 percent
Co-workers dropping by – 23 percent
Co-workers putting calls on speaker phone – 10 percent

Employers also shared real-life examples of some of the more unusual things they've seen employees doing when they should have been busy working:

Employee was blowing bubbles in sub-zero weather to see if the bubbles would freeze and break
A married employee was looking at a dating web site and then denied it while it was still up on his computer screen
Employee was caring for her pet bird that she smuggled into work
Employee was shaving her legs in the women's restroom
Employee was laying under boxes to scare people
Employees were having a wrestling match
Employee was sleeping, but claimed he was praying
Employee was taking selfies in the bathroom
Employee was changing clothes in a cubicle
Employee was printing off a book from the Internet
Employee was warming her bare feet under the bathroom hand dryer

"While many managers feel their teams perform at a desirable level, they also warn that little distractions can add up to bigger gaps in productivity," said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources at CareerBuilder. "It's important to be organized and designate times to work on different deliverables. Minimize interruptions and save personal communications for your lunch hour or break. It can help put more time and momentum back into your workday."

Nearly three in four employers (73 percent) have implemented some measures to mitigate productivity killers at work. Tactics include:

Blocking certain Internet sites at work – 36 percent
Prohibiting personal calls or personal use of cell phones – 25 percent
Monitoring emails and Internet usage – 22 percent
Scheduling lunch and break times – 19 percent
Allowing people to telecommute – 14 percent
Implementing an open space layout instead of cubicles – 13 percent
Limiting meetings – 12 percent
Restricting use of speaker phones if not in an office – 11 percent

Haefner offers the following tips to avoid wasting time on the job:

Organize and prioritize – De-clutter your workspace and clearly lay out your game plan for the week. What do you need to accomplish each day? How much time will each project take? Which projects have the highest priority?
Limit interruptions – Incoming calls and co-workers dropping by to chat about their weekend can break your concentration and eat up time. Block off a conference room to work on a project to avoid distractions at your desk. Read your email at intervals instead of opening each one as soon as it comes in. Consider telecommuting on certain days.
Avoid unnecessary meetings – Don't set aside an hour to meet about an issue or initiative that can be addressed with a quick phone call. Politely decline the meeting invitation and follow up with the organizer.
Get personal on your own time – Whether you want to call a friend, take advantage of an online sale or post a picture of your dog on your social profile, do it during your lunch hour or break time or after work.
Communicate wisely – Don't spend 20 minutes crafting an email to the person sitting in the next cubicle. Save time by picking up the phone or walking over to your colleague's desk.
Don't delay the inevitable – Finding other things to do so you can put off a less preferred project will only end up wasting more time. Don't procrastinate. Dive in and tackle the task at hand.

Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,138 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,022 workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and over between February 10 and March 4, 2014 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 2,138 and 3,022, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have sampling errors of +/-2.12 and +/-1.78 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder®
CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract great talent. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 24 million unique visitors and 1 million jobs. CareerBuilder works with the world's top employers, providing everything from labor market intelligence to talent management software and other recruitment solutions. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.

Media Contact
Jennifer Grasz
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SOURCE CareerBuilder