Wasted Time!

The average American worker wastes two hours a day. And, believe it or not, I’m not talking about lunch time. Apparently the two hour timeframe is in addition to the employee’s allowed “lunch time” so potentially we are looking at three hours for which the employer receives no benefit. Accordingly, if you add up all the wasted hours, just the average two per employee, it is costing American employers around $759 billion dollars on wasted salaries. Now, employers do build in an expected allowance for employee “distraction” of about one hour and take it into consideration when structuring salaries. However, they obviously underestimated the average employee since it seems that the actual amount should be double. In a recent survey, surfing the internet and socializing with co-workers came up on top as the major culprits. Missouri takes the top honors as the most “employee distracted” state with employees in the insurance industry coming in first place. I find it interesting that the survey also showed that when you were born has an impact on your productiveness on the job. The older generation appears to be the most job conscience with the least amount of wasted time. The ratio of wasted time to age increases as the employees’ age decreases. Since the survey only accounts for those born up to 1985 and currently in their mid to late twenties it would be interesting to see what the same survey would reveal if done in a few years time when my generation is an integral part of the workforce. Will we be spending more time wasting the employer’s money or will the current economic times force us to keep our nose to the grindstone in order to preserve a job. I’d like to think that, as the article states, my generation’s wasted time will be “creative” in nature and will have a positive impact on our future employers’ bottom line.