A new survey of more than 2,000 hiring managers and over 3,000 full-time employees by CareerBuilder showed that the modern smartphone may be killing productivity in the workplace. A majority (55 percent) of surveyed employers said smartphones are the biggest killers of workplace productivity.
“While we need to be connected to devices for work, we’re also a click away from alluring distractions from our personal lives like social media and various other apps,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder.
According to CareerBuilder, more than 8 in 10 workers (83 percent) have smartphones, and 82 percent of those with smartphones keep them within eye contact at work. But a majority of those workers with smartphones (65 percent) do not have their work emails on their smartphones.
Of those who access their smartphone during work for non-work use, they spend their time on these non-work related sites during work:
- Personal messaging: 65 percent
- Weather: 51 percent
- News: 44 percent
- Games: 24 percent
- Shopping: 24 percent
- Traffic: 12 percent
- Gossip: 7 percent
- Sales: 6 percent
- Adult: 4 percent
- Dating: 3 percent
In the below graphic, CareerBuilder identifies the top productivity killers in addition to the smartphone according to their survey.
“The connectivity conundrum isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be managed. Have an open dialogue with employees about tech distractions. Acknowledge their existence and discuss challenges/solutions to keeping productivity up,” recommends Haefner.
