This month we will be focusing our blog on the costs of disorganization, particularly in the workplace. While the financial cost to employers is significant, the true costs of workplace disorganization go far beyond only monetary loss. Employee productivity and morale, as well as customer service, loyalty and reputation are also negatively impacted by workplace disorganization.
One study, conducted by P-Touch in 2010, which gathered data from nearly 800 US employees, found that searching for lost or misplaced materials accounts for nearly 38 hours, approximately one work week annually, per employee. This study found that the costs associated for US full time employees looking for misplaced items in their offices exceeded $89 billion annually.
Survey respondents reported that wasting time searching for misplaced materials has a significant impact on professional perception, productivity and morale. Responses highlighted the negative opinions held toward those with a disorganized workspace. The disorganized, or cluttered, workspace is considered “unprofessional” by 86% of respondents. Worse yet, over 80% agreed that a co-worker who is disorganized “hurts the productivity of the whole office.” 87% of workers polled reported that they feel less productive in a cluttered workspace.
Even though so many people recognize the negative impacts of disorganization, 66% of full time office employees in the P-Touch survey admitted to spending up to 30 minutes a week looking for misplaced work items at their desk or around the office. Today, with the increasing challenges so many people face with digital disorganization, I believe that the number of hours lost to searching for electronic files brings this overall productivity loss significantly higher. It is not hard to think of the many better ways those hours could be spent – serving clients, creating new business or closing sales are just a few.
If you or your office would benefit from creating better organized systems, contact us to learn how we can help.
Stay tuned for our next post about digital disorganization.
