Building a company: Why nine hours a day is not enough

By Bhavin Turakhia, Founder and CEO, Flock

For organisations across the globe, boosting the efficiency of their employees and their work-life balance is a top priority. When workplace efficiency is hindered due to process inefficiencies, organisations lose out on time that could otherwise have been used to meet deadlines, pitch for new business, troubleshoot problems, and so on. When employees try to compensate for time lost by working overtime, it can affect their focus at work and upset their work-life balance.

To keep employees motivated and productive, many organisations are seeking new ways to maximise the use of time spent at work. Apart from training employees in simple time management strategies such as how to minimise distractions, prioritise assignments, and conduct weekly reviews, companies are also identifying resources and tools that can aid workplace efficiency. Even so, workplace efficiency continues to suffer for a variety of reasons.

Why nine hours are not enough

According to a survey conducted by personal financial management service, Think Money, a third of employees are distracted at work for up to three hours a day. This adds up to at least 60 hours of unproductive time a month or over 700 hours each year. The survey respondents cited a variety of reasons for their being distracted at work. This includes factors such as noise, slow PCs or bad internet connectivity, mobile phones, social media, personal messages, and uncomfortable workplace ambience.

However, most employees cited the number of active work hours spent on meetings as the primary factor for decreased workplace efficiency. Meetings are inevitable as they help to facilitate collaboration between departments and teams within the organisation, and between customers and vendors outside the organisation. But sometimes, instead of being productivity tools, meetings often become productivity-antagonists, primarily due to the manner in which they are conducted. For instance, a simple decision that could be taken via a two-minute online discussion thread becomes the matter of an hour-long in-person meeting. This is really a waste of precious, productive time.

Even virtual meetings come with their own share of drawbacks - mainly because ineffective technology platforms are used. Take, for example, a meeting scheduled by video conferencing. In most cases, the agenda is distributed to those attending prior to the actual meeting via email or a collaborative workspace. However, the meeting itself seldom integrates back into those environments, and when it does, it requires tedious manual work.

Get smarter - hard work is passé 

Even though employees put in about 9+ hours at their organisations, they struggle to manage their deadlines and KRAs. So, is there a way for them to increase their efficiency within their scheduled work hours?

The answer lies in adopting smarter collaboration tools. With teams on the move, organisations need to come out of their silos or fragmented work processes and use smart collaboration tools to create extra manhours. Creating more time within active manhours will not only increase workplace efficiency but also boost the organisation’s profitability.

Many organisations have started adopting smart communication tools. Team messengers, in particular, are most effective as they offer features that not only help employees enhance their productivity, but also manage time effectively.

Team messengers also make virtual meetings more effective by offering seamless video conferencing and the ability to share screenshots, rich note attachments, and even code snippets.

The key to a more efficient tomorrow

According to a 2014 report by Business Insider, an incredible USD 37 billion is lost each year to inefficient meetings. However, the ultimate goal of manufacturing the most amount of time out of active man-hours is not just getting costs under control. The goal is to create a more efficient collaboration platform that reduces the time spent on basic, repetitive tasks and increases the avenues for innovation and efficiency.