8 surprising facts about workplace productivity
The business world is a competitive one and in order to stand out, you must have a productive workplace. However, there are still a number of misconceptions surrounding productivity in the workplace. In an attempt to open your eyes to the truth, we have gone through 8 surprising facts about workplace productivity.
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Tuesday is the most productive day of the week
According to an Accountemps study, Tuesday has consistently taken top honours for the most productive day of the week every year since they started surveying in 1987. So, if you need to complete a major project, or have a big built up list of tasks to catch up on, save it for Tuesday!
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Most employees have mentally checked out from 4pm- 6pm
The Accountemps study also revealed that you are least productive in your workday between 4pm and 6pm. Working between 10am and noon are meant to be your best hours, although this can depend on the person. In order to boost your productivity, it is paramount you find the time in which you work the best and then arrange your work schedule around that.
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Workers spend 25% of their time reading and answering emails
Email productivity is hard to master. However, it is a crucial skill to succeed in the business environment. When attempting to multitask, you are faced with continual interruption which hugely impacts your productivity and makes it harder for you to enter a state of flow.
Research has shown that the number of hours we spend on email is increasing. Because of this, it is important we take the necessary steps to learn how we can be most productive while doing so. Working smarter not harder is key. Experts recommend the best way to do this is to make sure you are only checking your emails at set times in the workday, for example, when you first arrive at work, before you go on lunch and as you are getting to the end of the day.
You may want to ask yourself these questions if you are still finding yourself spend too much time looking at and responding to emails:
– What is the true importance of the email?
– Have you picked your email time wisely?
– Have you used email efficiency tools?
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Productivity nosedives after 40 hours
Numerous studies have proven that after 40 hours, work output decreases by 50%. As the typical workweek is 46 hours in the UK, it is clear that we must produce more within set hours, rather than working at the same rate for longer if we want to improve our productivity.
Back in 1817, Welsh activist Robert Owned coined the phrase “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hour rest” after discovering that such long days were not only unsustainable but brutal. When this phrase was put into practice for our eight hour days it was proved to increase productivity of the workforce. However, new studies are now showing that the average worker is only productive for around 3 hours a day!
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Travel is a short road to unproductivity
There are always good intentions when it comes to working while travelling to and from work. Unfortunately, in reality, it can end up not being as productive as planned.
Fortunately, there are a number of helpful tools which help the mobile workforce be more productive while travelling. For example, Microsoft 365 Enterprise allows staff members to work out of the office, whether they have an internet connection or not, then syncs up automatically when they next connect. When using ‘Teams’ within Microsoft 365, this is especially useful as employees can work together on important projects while on the go.
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Working for 90 minutes followed by a 20 minute breaks allows us to be more productive
We all want to perform our best when at work. If you don’t take any breaks, your productivity, mental well-being and overall performance at work will begin to suffer. It is a similar situation to when a runner starts to flag after a few miles; we all need breaks to ensure we can continue working to our full potential.
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71% of workers believe they would be more productive should their employer have a flexible working policy
It is common in organisations for management to ask themself if flexible working is a good idea and continue to remain sceptical about it. Working from home has managed to get itself an unfair reputation – if an employee works from home, they will skive. However, you may be happy to learn that the facts don’t lie… working from home works, but it does require trust.
Research has shown that by 2025 millennials will comprise three-quarters of the workforce who state having a good work-life balance as a priority. Working from home will help them achieve this as well as save organisations money on office space. Hosted Desktops are one solution that many organisations use in order to allow employees to access their desktop, applications and documents at any time, from anywhere, providing they have an internet connection, with security and compliance both built-in.
If you’re struggling with the freedom of working from home, our blog goes through 6 tips for working from home effectively.
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Meetings are a productivity killer
On average, people are spending 5 hours 3 minutes in meetings and 4 hours 15 minutes preparing for them.That is nearly a whole day devoted to meetings!
What’s more – 37% of meetings are also valued as unproductive. Although meetings are essential, it is clear that we must improve on how we prepare for and conduct them. Make sure you keep them short and engaging, as well as prevent participants from bringing in devices so you can achieve more positive outcomes.
Being productive will not only benefits the workforce as a whole, but your customers as well. Armed with the facts you have learn about in this blog, you will be able to make the necessary changing your workplace needs to succeed.
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