The Top 4 Office Productivity Killers and How to Overcome Them

With high productivity being the goal of most successful businesses, managing distractions and other office productivity killers is crucial. It’s one thing to be at work and another thing to produce quality and efficient work.

Leslie Ye addressed this topic on one of her blog posts for HubSpot in which she explains that throughout the day a total of 2.1 hours is lost to distractions. Working more hours doesn’t help that much. In fact, Henry Ford proved that employees are more productive in 40 hours than extending to 48 hours.

Knowing what the top office productivity killers are and what you can do to overcome them will help enhance the success of your business and provide a boost in productivity.

# 1 Email and Other Messaging

Whether it’s messaging apps or email, employees can often experience distractions with each ping of their work phone or computer. Messaging apps can quickly turn into menial conversations and spam emails quickly stream in. As a result, employees often find themselves distracted with irrelevant emails and conversations.

The solution?

Encourage your employees to focus on messaging apps when deadlines are tight or for specific projects requiring a steady stream of communication. Plus, emails can be used to keep track of progress made on projects or tasks needing completion.

# 2 Internet and Social Media

Personal technology is fast becoming integrated into the workplace as employees access work emails via their mobiles and tablets. Now employees can take their work with them wherever they go.

However, they also have with them a constant stream of notifications throughout their day. Unfortunately, many of these notifications are not related to their daily tasks or employment.

The distractions rise as employees check their personal technology to find a notification from Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The conundrum for many workplaces lies in the heavy reliance on emails and internet for the efficient execution of tasks. Hubspot claims that 61% of employees cannot do their jobs without emails and 54% require internet access.

In addition, access to the internet both in the office and away gives rise to aimless internet browsing. Often these internet searches have little to do with office tasks thus becoming another productivity killer.

The solution?

Encourage your employees to turn off social media notifications on their personal devices when in the office. Limited access to social media and internet restrictions can be useful in helping your business to manage the distractions both internet browsing and social media bring.

# 3 Unnecessary Meetings

According to Business Insider UK, a third of the meetings taking place in an average workday are unproductive thus incurring a cost in the billions of pounds.  Although meetings are essential to productivity, efficiency, sales and the general run of a successful company, unplanned and unnecessary meetings can easily become another productivity killer. Such meetings require employees to be present with little to say or do when they could be making headway on deadlines and other important tasks.

The Solution?

The following can be implemented to assist you in reducing the distractions meetings bring to a workday:

• Carefully evaluate the itinerary for each meeting in order to establish if it is worthwhile having a sit-down meeting or a quick standing meeting.
• Ensure conversation is focused on the topic at hand as well as listening to the “expert” employee for each agenda item.
• Make use of email and other remote meeting applications available to businesses.
• Create an office culture of punctuality and preparedness from all attendees.
• Better timekeeping practices to ensure work is done on time

# 4 Open Plan Office Space

Productivity killers aren’t just social media, office gossip or team building events. According to HubSpot, open plan offices make a large contribution to the decrease in business productivity. This is due to increased office noise, lack of privacy, increased distractions, and the inability for an employee to close their door and immerse themselves in their work.

Although open plan office space is effective from a budgeting perspective as well as a great utilization of office floor space, not all employees are able to work effectively in such an environment. Introverted employees require space to be alone with their thoughts; whereas, extroverted employees embrace the opportunity to talk out their work hurdles and struggles.

The solution?

In order to overcome some of the dilemmas open plan offices cause to productivity, you can try the following

• Work on creating more opportunities for employees to work remotely

Provide space in the office for privacy corners in which employees can sit when they require some time alone with their thoughts. Use of meeting rooms can assist with this. With some creativity, space can be created for employees to have privacy and time alone.