7 things that waste employees time at work and how to deal with it

Ruslan Askarov

It is a common saying that time is precious, and it is just like an opportunity. Once it is gone, it can never be regained. Therefore, it is important that whatever task anybody finds themselves doing at the moment, you had better put in much so as to yield high productivity, because once that time is gone and nothing positive comes out of it, such person is no different from Time Wasters.

Once the time is wasted, it’s not long that the blame game begins, and people begin to fault each other, of which no one will eventually take the blame.

Therefore, so as to prevent an occurrence of time-wasting at work, it is important one knows exactly how well to spend their time and what that time is to be spent achieving. In this regard, this article explains 7 things that waste employee’s time at work and how to deal with it.

Why Employees May Waste Their Work Time

Waste of time of employees at work is as a result of various reasons. One of these reasons is a result of a lack of priorities. Many forget the main essence of why they were employed and end up doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Employees should rather be more focused on their main job and activities that support this priority.
Surprisingly, many set their priorities right, but they are not swift to get the task done as soon as possible. Procrastination has done more harm than good, leading to under-productivity. It is better to give whatever time it requires now to get a task done rather than procrastinating.

List of Time Wasters, And How to Deal With It

Highlighted below are 7 things that waste employee’s time as well as possible solutions, which involve time tracking and time tracking apps.

1. Personal Calls & Chats

More often than personal and chats are the major things that employees waste their time on without even knowing how much time is spent. While an employee is supposed to be focused on the job at hand, calls might come, or that notification bar may pop-up, showing a message from their friend of yours or the news of your area of interest. Just within the twinkle of an eye, you will be amazed at how much time has been wasted.

Solution

Be focused, have your protocol, and specific time concerning how you respond to call, messages, and chats. If it is not official or extremely urgent, it can wait after work.

2. Short Breaks and Feeding

It is a common saying that all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Many, based on this statement, eventually end up being lazy and under-productive. You might see the need to take a few seconds out to get some space, chill out, or entertain yourself by engaging in fun-filled activities or maybe getting something to eat. It is not as though taking a break is a time-waster; it becomes one when you lose track of time at the expense of the job left undone.

Solution

Your employees’ short break should not exceed the required time, neither should it be spent on what’s not intended for; relax, eat, and back to work.

3. Lack of concentration and focus

Employees at work are found to always be in the habit of getting distracted by anything capable of causing distractions such as unnecessary emails, unnecessary jest, chit-chat, short interruptions, etc. Distractions come when one is not focused, or when concentration is misplaced on irrelevant things. All of these might seem to take just a little of your time, but at the end of the day, the accumulation of time wasted by getting distracted, or misplacing focus could have yielded something highly productive.

Solution

Disconnect yourself from anything that you do not need on the internet. Better put, do not access anything over the internet or social media, except if it’s needed to get your job done.

4. Poor Administrative Skills

It not just enough that an employee is hard working. The employee must be able to make good use of the available resources at hand and judiciously use it harmoniously so as to get an optimized result. Lack of these skills will eventually lead the employees to waste time in getting a simple task done. Some of the administrative skills are paper management, bookkeeping, research skill, self-motivation, etc.

Solution

The best way out of this is to gather knowledge and learn basic soft skills that will sharpen your administrative skills.

5. Unclear Job Descriptions

Each Job or task has its own peculiarities. These specific peculiarities determine the manner of approach the task and get it done in the best and simplest way possible, without reducing the quality or productivity of the result. Some employees spend and waste unnecessary time based on inadequate descriptions of the job.

Solution

Asks questions when needed, even when you get confused while on the job, do not be shy to call for help or further directions.

6. Poor knowledge about work tools and Equipment

It is one thing to be clear about the Job description; it is another thing to know to effectively use the necessary tools and equipment needed in getting your work done. Some employees waste time due to little or no knowledge about these tools.

Solution

Colleagues at work can help out with this, interact with them, ask questions, and be observant on how it is used.

7. Unclear Communication

Quite a number of employees perform their job poorly and waste time, basically because of unclear communication. Nobody says you should not ask questions when you are not clear about what to do. It is better to spend time asking questions than to waste time due to unclear communications.

Solution

Ensure there are express communication and detailed facts on what to do and how to do it. You help yourself not to waste time, nor fall into confusion or unnecessary pressure when you ask the necessary and right questions.

Conclusion

Perhaps you are having issues with your employees wasting time, one of the most effective ways to caution such time-wasters is to strategize their time. This is best done by time tracking and making good use of Time Tracking apps. Monitask adequately serves this purpose. It is an employee monitoring app that allows you to track time, and analyze every task you have at hand.

By this, you know when they spend time on the wrong task or do the wrong task at the right time. Monitask tracks your activity, provides reports, and measures productivity; therefore the best way to avoid waste of time is to implement/use a time tracking app in your team because it shows employee’s utilization, tracks their activity, projects, tasks, build reports, and cuts their excesses. Additionally, both employers and employees can take positive feedback from the report of the time tracking app, and see how to improve themselves and cut out any other activity that wastes their time; and this is one fascinating feature about the Monitask tracking app, it tracks the time of both employees and employers.

Summarily, time is precious; get rid of time wasters, keep track of your time, monitor your activities, and ensure that whatever you or your employee find themselves doing, is highly productive.

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