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5 Things Your Employees Are Doing Right Now Instead of Working

Time to Get Serious About Productivity

Face it: Your employees are going to slack off. In fact, people who work 45 hours per week consider 17 of those hours to be unproductive, according to a widely cited Microsoft Office

 Personal Productivity Challenge study.

The question isn't how you'll put an end to all that downtime -- that's simply not realistic -- but rather how you can mitigate the distractions so they don't take a major toll on your business.

The first step is to find out what your employees are doing instead of working. The next step is to figure out the best way to react to these distractions so you can get employees back on track. Be on the lookout for these five workplace distractions for your employees -- and learn what you can do about them.

Time Killer #1: The Internet

The Internet, an irresistible lure that sweeps everyone into its vortex at one point or another, is at peak usage during work hours. Some of the biggest online lures:

Facebook: Indeed, some 77 percent of workers who are on Facebook use it during business hours.

Personal email: Although employees may intend to shoot a quick note to a friend or spouse, they often get caught in the inevitable back-and-forth that wastes precious time.

Gaming: Valuable work hours are eaten up by this is fast-growing online diversion. Farmville, Angry Birds, and Fantasy Football are particular favorites.

Shopping: Busy people rarely have time in their workday to hit the mall. Instead, they browse online catalogs and other sites, researching and purchasing everything from clothing and cameras to new cars and Caribbean cruises while at work.

Depending how pervasive the problem is, consider banning the activity that eats up the most time. For instance, 54 percent of companies in the United States -- as well as the U.S. Marines! -- ban all social media sites, such as Facebook, from the workplace.

While an outright ban works for certain companies, it's less helpful for others. For instance, if your company embraces a tech-savvy workforce and encourages social media as a means to communicate company aims (like job openings and sale promos), you'll need to take a more nuanced approach. Set parameters on how much time can be spent on the Internet in a given day -- and then follow up to make sure that people are actually following your guidelines.

Time Killer #2: Porn

There's a good chance your office is X-rated. A full one-quarter of employees who use the Internet admit to watching porn during work hours, according to Nielsen Online. It's a statistic backed up by the porn industry, which reports that 70 percent of its traffic is generated during business hours.

Beyond the ick factor, porn consumption can cause plenty of headaches for your company, including lost hours of productivity and the very real exposure of company computers to potent viruses -- not to mention sexual harassment lawsuits. It's a big enough problem that we decided to separate porn from other Internet distractions.

First, establish a written policy that prohibits accessing porn during company hours. This might seem obvious, but fewer than 10 percent of U.S. companies have such explicit policies in place, leaving them exposed.

Next, let all employees know there is no such thing as privacy on company computers or handheld devices. This wake-up call should prevent employees from becoming too lax about their behavior while on company time.

Finally, no matter what you say, some employees are going to attempt to view porn anyway. If you're serious about stopping it, you may want to invest in good employee Internet management software. In the past couple years, this type of software has evolved past simple porn blocking into more sophisticated systems that let you tailor the blocks you place on sites so that work-related searches (say, for medical terms or body parts) aren't inadvertently screened out.

Time Killer #3: Sleeping on the Job

As companies require more work of fewer employees, sleeping on the job is paradoxically becoming more pervasive. Indeed, studies show that a full 20 percent of employees are seriously sleep deprived, getting less than seven hours of shut-eye per night.

No matter how tired workers may be, heads on desks and nodding off in meetings is not acceptable. The problem is that exhaustion can look an awful lot like boredom, sending the wrong signals about your business to other employees -- and to clients and customers. And the potential for nap abuse is even worse at companies where workers regularly spend time away from the office

Some say the nap is the new coffee break. Many successful companies like Time Warner and Ben & Jerry's embrace employees' need to nap. Their theory: A well-rested employee is a more productive employee.

So if your workforce is sleep deprived, why not let tired employees squeeze 40 winks into their day? Suggest they snooze in a break room if possible. You could even go so far as to set aside a room with cots and blankets where your staff can turn for a brief, 20-minute midday rest. Research shows they are apt to rise more refreshed and focused.

Two pieces of advice: Don't allow workers to nap if you're not comfortable with the idea -- mixed messages are a morale killer. And make sure those 20-minute power naps don't turn into 2-hour snooze fests.

Time Killer #4: Fooling Around

As long as people have been working together, they have been falling in love at work. A Vault.com survey found that 59 percent of respondents had dated a colleague, and 63 percent of them would do so again.

So what's the big deal?

Lost work time due to long lunches and motel trysts is the least of it. Fallout from office romances gone sour can range from resentment felt by other coworkers to sexual harassment suits.

One way to protect your company is to establish office relationship guidelines for employees. Strikingly, a study by the Society of Human Resource Management found that 75 percent of companies don't have policies in place addressing office romance. Failing to do so can put your company in legal jeopardy, but you have to do it the right way.

Some companies ban romances in the office through nonfraternization policies, but these aren't legal in all states and can be tricky to monitor. A more practical approach is to establish strict codes of conduct that govern the types of relationships that are acceptable (e.g., no supervisor and subordinate pairing unless one of the pair can be reassigned) and standards of personal conduct (e.g., no PDA at work).

This kind of policy can help define what behavior is acceptable and guide the couple in question, as well as those who work with them.

Time Killer #5: Fantasy Sports and Office Pools

When it comes to major sporting events like March Madness or the Super Bowl, the reality is this: Your employees are going to find the game a lot more interesting than anything going on at work.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement consulting firm, reports that about $200 million and 84 million hours are lost during the NCAA college basketball tournament. Meanwhile, the Super Bowl yields about $170 million in losses thanks to employees who, rather than working, chat about the game, take bets on teams, and watch game-related coverage on YouTube.

And that doesn't even address ongoing sports distractions like fantasy leagues for baseball, football, and basketball. These may have a more limited audience, but devotees spend countless hours -- many of them at work -- drafting, trading, and perfecting their rosters.

If you can't beat them, join them.

Understand that these annual sporting events are going to be productivity killers no matter what you do, so you might as well embrace them. Plan so that the workload during Super Bowl week, March Madness, and other major athletic events, which will vary by year and workforce, is lessened so your company can better afford the distraction.

Try to view these events as a way to connect on a personal level with employees and score some points for your openness and flexibility. Set the TVs in break rooms to play the games, establish an officewide pool (but make sure there's no fee to join to avoid legal trouble), and allow employees to periodically check in via radio or the Web to get scores.

Yes, you're losing time, but you're building team spirit. No one can put their nose to the grindstone every minute. Heck, you just may have some fun yourself.

Wireless Business Solution Zee Tawasha