The biggest time drain reported is searching for files on a server – 23 minutes per day – thanks to poor search tools. Other routine time wasters include using the printer: seven minutes spent daily waiting for it to warm up, and nearly ten minutes waiting for pages to come out.
The survey of over 1,000 office workers in the UK by Sharp finds that this adds up to almost 40 minutes wasted per employee per day, the equivalent of 167 hours or four weeks of dead time every year, costing businesses over £2,100 per year per employee.
Almost 80 per cent of respondents in the UK say that their workplace is out of date when it comes to technology. If their office didn’t have such slow technology, nearly two thirds of workers (64 per cent) reveal that they would be more productive, and nearly one in five (19 per cent) say they would stop looking for another job, suggesting a big opportunity for businesses to improve both output and staff retention.
Stuart Sykes, managing director of Sharp UK says, ‘Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and help us to work faster, however, in the real world, out-of-date technology and technology that is hard to use often slows people down, forcing them to waste time.
‘This dead time can mean lost opportunities, lost profits and even lost employees. Businesses must wake up to the importance of connected technologies that work in sync with their employees’ changing needs and allow them to get the best out of their team, as well as making for a more motivated, more productive workplace.’
