Quick: what are your staffers doing at this very second? If you’re like most organizations, there’s a good chance many of your staffers are attending to personal matters. But who says it’s acceptable just because it happens in other offices too?

According to a recent survey of 2,000 office workers conducted by AtTask and Harris Interactive (News - Alert) – experts in management and market research – employees at various firms said they only dedicate 45 percent of their time to getting stuff done. The remainder (55%) of the time gets spent sifting through emails, or in meetings that could easily be replaced by conference calls. Also on the list of common pastime activities was “miscellaneous interruptions.”

Some raw numbers

Actual time spent per activity, as relayed by the duo behind the survey:

• 45 percent for primary job duties
• 14 percent for email
• 12 percent for admin tasks
• 9 percent for useful meetings
• 8 percent for interruptions
• 7 percent for wasteful meetings
• 6 percent for everything else

Wasted time in the office translates into less productivity and a low moral for everyone. To read this article in full, please click here.