Why employers must do more to help productivity levels

With the average worker admitting they are unproductive for up to one and a half hours a day, employers must do more to help get the best from their employees. Darryl Brunt, country head for UK and Ireland at Fellowes shares

We’ve heard a lot about productivity in the workplace in the last few months and some employers are trying to help their workers. But now a new productivity report released by office product specialists Fellowes, has found that 38 per cent of office workers are calling on their employers to do more and 60 per cent believe their business has productivity issues.

With ongoing problems in offices around the country, the average worker admits they are unproductive for up to 1.5 hours a day, adding up to a staggering 40 million hours lost across the UK every week. Worryingly, compared to 2017, the average office worker has lost an extra 30 minutes a day to productivity issues.

Our annual Productivity report studies the opinions of 1,250 office workers from the legal, education, finance, IT & telecoms and marketing sectors to understand how they view their productivity and what employers need to do to boost output levels in the UK.

The biggest causes of distraction for respondents included:

• Talking to colleagues (47per cent)
• Emails (29 per cent)
• Mobile phones (24 per cent)

It’s not just the responsibility of the employees, employers and managers across the country need to do more to help, with a quarter of office workers claiming having less meetings would help them be more productive, as well as 17 per cent saying that taking more breaks would increase output and 16 per cent looking for better management.

Over a third (36 per cent) also complained they were faced with not having the right office equipment more than once a week and 95 per cent agreed that good office equipment improves output.

The makeup of every workforce is different but it‘s clear that employers need to do more to help get the best from their employees. With only 59 per cent of UK office workers saying they are quite productive its key for solutions to be implemented quickly.

To unlock people’s productivity, workers must not only have the right equipment but they must feel valued and supported. By establishing smarter ways of working, employers can build an empowered workforce which best serves its customers.