How Unproductive Time at Work Costs Your Business Money
As the manager of your firm, you understand that every dollar and every minute counts. What you may not realize is the actual cost of distractions at work. It’s easy to overlook a few idle minutes here and there, but these seemingly insignificant periods can add up quickly, resulting in a substantial financial impact.
The Hidden Cost of Wasted Time
Think about it: if your employees are losing just 5 to 10 minutes a day to distractions or unproductive activities, it doesn’t seem like much at first glance. But over time, these small increments of lost time accumulate into hours. Let’s do the math.
If an employee spends just 10 minutes a day unproductively, that’s 50 minutes a week, or over 40 hours in a year – the equivalent of an entire week of lost productivity. Multiply that by the number of employees you have, and suddenly those “small” increments of time result in thousands of lost work hours annually. This directly impacts your bottom line.
For example, if an employee’s hourly wage is $50, losing just 10 minute per day to unproductive time costs you $2083 per year, per employee. Now, imagine you have 10 employees. That’s over $20,000 a year in lost productivity just from each of them wasting less than an hour each week. And that’s without accounting for the potential loss in efficiency, customer service, or missed opportunities that unproductive time might cause.
The Cost of Time Waste
To help you understand the cost of unproductive time in your business our Cost of Time Wasted chart breaks down the annual cost of lost time for different employee wages and time blocks. This will give you a clearer picture of just how much even small inefficiencies are costing your business.
Download this chart:CostofTimeWasted
How Does Time Slip Away?
Unproductive time can take many forms. It can be self inflicted such as:
- Lack of prioritization skills
- Poor Workplace Organization
- Failing To Delegate
- Insufficient time management skills
Some time sinks are external and are imposed upon us;
- Unnecessary or inefficiently run meetings
- Lack of adequate training
- Inefficient technology
- Waiting on delayed tasks from other teams.
For our full list of common time wasters email us at info@advisoryeducationpartners.com and we will be happy to send it to you!
Solutions to Combat Unproductive Time
The first step to reducing unproductive time at work is awareness. And while you cannot eliminate all contributing factors (employees need breaks to remain focused), there are plenty of opportunities to save time. Many business owners don’t realize how quickly time adds up or how much it costs. Simple tools like time tracking can help identify where time is being lost. Additionally, a process driven employee training plan helps your team to work at a higher level of efficiency and reduce unproductive time. AEP’s TEEMS program will help your employees achieve a greater level of efficiency by improving their technical knowledge and teach them useful skills to help them operate more efficiently and productively.
To see a list of AEP’s lessons and programs visit our Learning Center. To learn more about how Advisory Education Partners helps Financial Advisors build high performing teams schedule an Exploratory Call with a program advisor.
Make every minute count – because even 5 minutes a day can add up to thousands lost over a year.
The Employee Training & Development Partner for Independent Financial Advisory Firms
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