Britain's business executives may be working the longest hours in Europe - but much of their time is wasted sorting unnecessary emails and phone calls, it has been revealed. Such office distractions are costing business across the country a combined £140bn a year, it is claimed. The average senior manager only manages to complete three hours 50 minutes of constructive work each day, a survey from car company Cadillac found.
More than half of office time is said to be spent dealing with unwanted emails and telephone calls, with 44% of bosses saying their most productive working happens on the journey to and from work.
More than four in five said they spent up to three hours a day reading and replying to emails, with 39% of all office emails travelling less than 100 metres from sender to recipient. As many as 75% of businessmen and women said they had suffered stress or "office rage" caused by an overload of internal distractions. Almost as many (71%) said people were shunning face-to-face meetings in favour of hiding behind email communications.
Steve Catlin, of Cadillac, said: "In today's business world, time is probably the most precious commodity and being caught up in unnecessary internal communication, which takes hours to deal with, is a frustrating distraction."
In an effort to increase the nation's productivity, Cadillac is loaning out a fleet of its luxury SRX cars as mobile "think" spaces that can be used as meeting rooms or 'quiet contemplation spaces'. How generous of them - we're sure they won't mind the exposure too much.
Another survey will find the average office worker will carry out 20 minutes of constructive work a day. The rest of the time they will be dealing with moaning senior management who forward e-mail after e-mail that doesn't concern the junior staff.
And if senior managers didn't spend so much time on the golf course or out of the office 'at meetings' then they wouldn't have to deal with the numerous e-mails and telephone messages!
Social bookmarking
Bookmark this article with the following social bookmarking websites: