How to Tell When Your Employees Are Wasting Time at Work
You may remember the CBS News story about a report detailing the work habits of employees. It turns out that as much as 60-to-80 percent of the average adult workforce is engaged in non-work activities when they are at the office. These activities include checking in on social networks, texting on mobile devices, and surfing the Internet for personal enjoyment and even job search reasons. All this slacking leads to millions of dollars in lost revenue every year. Since when is stealing company time ok?
Are you concerned that you employees are wasting time like this at work? It can be hard to tell sometimes, especially when employees are great at hiding their covert activities. Some may even be wasting so much time that they are creating other bad habits, such as eating lunch at their desks and staying late on the company dime.
Here are several signs that your employees are participating in “cyberloafing” on the job.
Employees find it difficult to meet project deadlines.
Do you have a number of employees who consistently struggle with meeting their deadlines for work projects, don’t keep their commitments to clients, or just don’t manage their time well? This can be a big red sign that they are spending their valuable working hours to goof off.
Employees seem distracted or irritated often.
Have your staff meetings turned into grumbling from a group of employees who are set on looking at their mobile devices moreso than paying attention? Or maybe every time you call one of your subordinates they act like you are annoying them? This can be a sign that employees are being distracted by other activities that they cannot seem to pull themselves away from long enough to actually get some work done.
Employees update their social networks frequently.
Take a moment to locate the social profiles of your employees – on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Are they updating their profiles more than once a day? Check the times that they are logging notes into their social accounts too, are they happening throughout the day (not at lunchtime)? This can be a real problem.
Employees aren’t interacting with team members.
Another sign of employees who are not focusing on work during work hours is that they tend to disappear from the rest of the team. Or they just don’t make an effort to interact or socialize with peers. This happens during peak work hours when they should be an active part of the team. Observe these employees and find out what has caused them to become disconnected.
If you need help managing your workforce, or finding new talented employees to add to your team, contact the staffing experts at Advance Staffing Solutions today!
