A productivity paradox

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It’s gotten hard to pay attention to technology news without hearing a report from Websense or Challenger, Gray & Christmas or some consultancy tallying up the lost productivity companies suffer as employees spend time on Facebook and other non-work-related websites. The numbers sometimes reach into the billions of dollars. How do companies survive?

The answer of course, is that the studies are a load of crap. Not taken into account is the fact that a lot of the time spent on these sites does have a work-related dimension to it. Also not taken into account is the fact that workers put extra time to make up for the time spent online, regardless of whether that time is spent at the office or at home. And let’s not forget the amount of time the average knowledge worker spends doing work at home anyway. (Raise your hand if the first thing you do when you wake up is reach for your Blackberry to check your work email.)

The truth of this is borne out by news last week that worker productivity has increaed more quickly in the first quarter of 2008 than previously reported. I read this is the June 5 edition of USA Today that was delivered to my hotel room:

The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.6% in the January-March period, faster than the government’s initial estimate of 2.2% a month ago.

This is consistent with other Labor Department reports, not to mention one from the United Nations, that shows generally increasing productivity with the U.S. leading the pack.

How can that reconcile with the billions of dollars in lost productivity attributable to Facebook? The answer is simple: It can’t.

1. It occurs worldwide. For example in Russia the site odnoklassniki is popular. On this site there are classmates and served together in army.
   Sorry for my bad English.

   Posted by Serg  on  06/12  at  07:20 PM

2. Shel,
   I totally agree with you on this. I am a human resources consultant and blogger on http://www.newlearningplaybook.com/blog

   I am constantly hearing from Heads of HR the following: “We would do more on Facebook, but our IT department will not allow us to access this site due to security issues as well as the overall belief in lost productivity.” This is a major issue and especially one for financial service companies. I would be pleased to share my views on this and my research.
   Thanks
   Jeanne Meister

   Posted by Jeanne Meister  on  06/13  at  02:51 AM

3. Thanks, Jeanne. I have a world of respect for IT departments, but in some organizations, you have to wonder who died and left IT in charge of employee productivity. When did this stop being a management task?

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  06/13  at  04:38 AM

4. Shel, your post dismisses the work of other professionals seemingly out of hand, whilst citing anecdotal evidence and a single metric from a report that is so broad in coverage that it is unlikely to tell us anything about the impact of SM on the workplace. Please can you point us towards a study that looks at productivity levels in a large organisation before and after SM adoption?

   Posted by Alan A Richardson  on  06/17  at  06:53 AM

5. Alan, you’re taking my post out of context; please read my other posts on this topic. Far from “dismissing” the work of professionals, I have dissected it thoroughly. Regular readers here know that. I also suggest you visit stopblocking.org, where much of the same information resides.

   Posted by Shel Holtz  on  06/17  at  11:31 AM