Internet is one of the greatest and most important inventions of humanity. It makes communication, file sharing, cooperation much simpler and faster. But how does it influence employee productivity at the workplace?
Why Internet at the Workplace is a Problem?
The annual research from Salary.com showed that 89% of employees waste their time at work on daily basis. And the main source of this waste is social media.
In particular, here’s a little breakdown:
- 31% waste roughly 30 minutes daily;
- 31% waste roughly 1 hour daily;
- 16% waste roughly 2 hours daily;
- 6% waste roughly 3 hours daily;
- 2% waste roughly 4 hours daily;
- 2% waste 5 or more hours daily.
While this not only hurts businesses, it also hurts employee productivity. As a consequence of wasted time, employees have to stay late at the office, they get home later and don’t have the enough time for full value sleep.
How do Companies Fight this Problem?
Traditionally, there is one way that companies decide to solve this issue – ban the access to all or certain social media websites.
This is inefficient for three reasons:
- Social media is a place of free promotion channels for most businesses. So banning them means losing potential customers/users/readers.
- It creates a tension within your company. Banning social media means you don’t trust your employees.
- Most employees are experienced computer users, so they can easily outsmart any ban.
How to Maintain and Increase Employee Productivity at the Internet-connected Workplace?
Instead of banning, let your employees use social media during the day, and simply check the reports, generated by Yaware.TimeTracker to see if employees don’t spend too much time there.
The Benefits of Using an Automated Time Tracking System
1) You get accurate data about the productivity of Internet use within your company
The database of Yaware.TimeTracker contains more than 15 000 automatically categorized apps and websites.
The system divides all used apps and websites into three categories: productive, unproductive and neutral. So, by taking a look at employee’s report, you see an accurate analysis of his time and productivity.
2) You let employees increase their productivity by themselves
Yaware.TimeTracker provides every team member with a personal report, that includes time and productivity analysis. Employees can see how much time they spend on each app and website (including social media) and decide how it affects their time and productivity.
3) You can learn the productivity patterns of your employees
Using Yaware.TimeTracker you can see how employee productivity changes during the day. E.g., you can find out times of the day when employees are unproductive and see what interferes their efficiency.
Conclusion
Accept the fact that spending some time on social media increases employee productivity. Just use an automated time tracking system to keep it under control.
