Managers may think one of their key roles is to keep employees on task, but a new survey suggests that many rank-and-file employees feel they are kept from doing their jobs by time-wasting supervisors.
The survey of 606 U.S. employees was conducted by Workfront, a project management software company. Among the things that workers believe get in the way of their core tasks:
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42 percent say excessive oversight.
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43 percent say excessive emails.
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59 percent say wasteful meetings.
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The average respondent estimates she spends only 39 percent of her day on primary job duties.
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Those responding to the survey were by and large happy with their jobs. Their perception of the work day as inefficient did not prevent them from expressing satisfaction with their work, their colleagues and their bosses. Seventy-seven percent say they were usually happy to be at the office.
Despite all the time wasted at the office, employees say they spend an average of 45.1 hours a week at work. That suggests that the workweek could be substantially shorter — and likely save employers big bucks on overtime — if workplaces became better at managing time.
Similarly, most employees take less than a half hour for lunch every day, a finding that is consistent with the prevailing American work mentality. While Europeans are known for stopping to enjoy a lengthy meal during the week, Americans increasingly seem to view lunch as an annoyance.
Workfront is using the survey as evidence that employers would benefit from a software solution that allows everybody involved in a project to communicate and see information relating to the work that their colleagues are doing. That reduces the need for emails and status meetings to get others up-to-speed, the company says.
In all likelihood, however, technology can only go so far in saving an office from time-wasting workers and managers. Some people like to hold meetings, and some people like to talk a lot during meetings. Changing that often requires a very uncomfortable but necessary conversation.
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