March Bits-N-Bytes

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Is Your Staff Really Working for You?
By Leo Bletnitsky, President, Desktop Valet.

Productivity is up from last year! Is it time to celebrate? According to a 2006 survey conducted by Salary.com and AOL workers are wasting less time at work than in 2005. Wasted time is now down to only 1.86 hours per day not including lunch.

If that worker is paid for performance (Commissions, Sales Bonuses, etc...) that may be OK since they are probably working more than 8 hours a day and being paid for what they produce. But what about those employees that punch the clock or get paid by the hour? They are only working for you 75% of the time you are paying them? What is this costing your organization?

If you have 50 employees that make an average of $20 per hour, your cost in lost productivity is almost $500,000 per year! That's a staggering number that most businesses can't afford. To make matters worse, in 2005 Nevada was ranked number 5 in the country for the amount of time wasted; a whopping 2.7 hours per day! Here in Nevada the above example would cost your company $675,000 in wasted time! Keep in mind that these numbers don't include the opportunity cost for the hours lost.

Here are the top time wasting activities according to the survey:

Top Time-Wasting Activities (%)
1 Surfing Internet (personal use) 52.0%
2 Socializing with co-workers 26.3%
3 Running errands off-premises 7.6%
4 Spacing out 6.6%
5 Making personal phone calls 3.9%
6 Arriving late / Leaving early 2.9%
7 Applying for other jobs .7%

If you ask the average staff member if it's OK to take a $200 computer monitor home without asking, most would say, "of course not, that's stealing!" However, for some reason your people are OK with costing you that each week in wasted payroll dollars. If an employee stole $200 a week from petty cash for a year, they'd likely end up serving time in prison.

What can companies do to combat this issue? There are three different ways to approach the issue. One, you can ignore it, two, devise incentives for productivity, three, block/monitor the staff's unauthorized Internet/computer use (the #1 place that time is wasted).

Ignoring the problem is not a good solution or for that matter a good management strategy. The correct method is someplace between the second and third option depending upon the industry and the specifics of each organization. Human Resources Professionals are always devising creative ways to enhance productivity and moral. Some of these methods work wonders, others make matters worse. An important start is to have a clear written policy regarding the chief time wasting arenas (Internet use, personal telephone calls, chatting with co-workers and sneaking offsite to run errands).

Being a technology consultant, I'll deal with the third option. I strongly recommend that employers have a clear Internet and computer use policy as part of your employee handbook that includes language that lets the staff know that the computers are company property and that their use may be monitored.

Block access to Instant Messaging (IM) if this technology is not part of your corporate communication strategy, not only do many employees waste time messaging with friends, there are more and more malicious threats that utilize IM as a portal into your computer and network.

Block access to community sites such as MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, etc… The only legitimate reason for visiting these sites in most companies is for the HR Department to look up potential job applicants to discover the personality traits that were not revealed during the interview process or as part of an advertising campaign by the Marketing Department.

In addition to the time waster's favorites, there are thousands of additional places people go to pass the time; Sports, shopping, hobbies, family and other web sites. These sites can be blocked by content filtering applications by category or individually at the firewall, depending upon each company's needs and policies. One strategy that I often recommend is to allow your staff access to everything, but to monitor the activity in the background. There are software applications that record all activity on your computers and network and provide it to you in easy to understand charts and graphs. Utilizing the information gathered can be an invaluable tool for knowing who are the major time wasters, what they are doing, and also provides fantastic documentation if disciplinary action or termination is needed. Keep in mind that in addition to the lost productivity, many places your employees may go can land you in hot water legally or compromise the integrity of your intellectual property or compliance requirements.

As scary as all this sounds, there are solutions. Make it a team effort between your HR, Legal, and I.T. Departments. If done right, you may capture some of the dollars above before they escape!

Leo Bletnitsky is the CEO of LBA Networking, Inc. and President of Desktop Valet, He has been in I.T. Consulting for over 12 years. Leo can be reached at LEOB@DesktopValet.com