This is so true especially when there is a "ping pong" email match going on or when some are trying to debate via emails!! No wonder we spend so much time on the emails.

Until the next time, cheers.

Workers spend 61 per cent of their day lost in email and information

The Sydney Morning Herald, July 30, 2012

Lia Timson

IT Pro Editor

We spent 61 per cent of our office time deadling with emails, retrieving information and collaborating; and only 39 per cent actually performing tasks. 

The average office worker spends 28 hours a week – or nearly 1500 hours a year - writing emails, searching for information and attempting to "collaborate" internally, according to a new report.

No wonder, they feel their working hours slipping by as the time left to do "real work" stretches beyond the traditional 9 to 5.

A new global report by McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of management consultancy McKinsey & Company, argues wide adoption of social media technologies by businesses could cut down some of the time-wasting involved in emailing and improve worker productivity by 20 to 25 per cent.

According to  "The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technology" report, which uses IDC data, workers spend 28 per cent of their time, reading, writing or responding to email, and another 19 per cent tracking down information to complete their tasks. Communicating and collaborating internally accounts for another 14 per cent of the average working week, with only 39 per cent of the time remaining to accomplish role-specific tasks.

It also says social enterprises could reduce communication costs, improve worker access to knowledge and to internal experts, lower travel costs, increase employee satisfaction, reduce operational costs and, even increase revenue by 10 per cent on average.

Social media technologies include software products and services that allow people to connect more efficiently than via email. This includes internal tweets – also known as microblogging -, blogs, posting information and documents to a feed, "liking" and "sharing" other people's posts, video and audio files. It is much like Facebook and already-existing social tools for enterprises such as Chatter, by Salesforce.com, and Yammer, now owned by Microsoft.

Other social and Web2.0 tools such as wikis and shared online work spaces were also included as potential productivity improvers, although some of these have now been abandoned in preference for newer Twitter-like tools.

The report, however, suggests increased productivity can not be achieved "simply by installing social software". The tools need to be accompanied by management change and commitment.

Dr Gavin Schwarz, Associate Professor at the Australian School of Business, School of Management, UNSW agrees.

"Just because it's a more contemporary form of communication it doesn't change that people still need to be ready and have the right mindset for it," Dr Schwarz says.

"There's an assumption that because people are tweeting socially, [the habit] will automatically transfer to work. Not necessarily. It comes down to this idea that people have to be made more ready for change, regardless of what it is."

He says businesses have also to pay attention to possible generational differences when attempting to integrate social tools at work.

Companies that adopted social media tools early agree, with some previously telling IT Pro new processes needed to be "championed" by chosen users internally before they could gain traction.

Dr Asif Qumer Gill, research fellow in business information systems at the University of Sydney, has just released a paper evaluating the use of social tools in business, including Chatter.

He estimates people spend between 40 and 50 per cent of their working day communicating via email, face-to-face and in meetings, but this is not integrated with the actual work they are doing.

"Email is a very passive way to communicate," Dr Gill says.

Email and meeting times could be reduced if people were allowed to have quick discussions and exchanges from within the software program they are using – say updating a group while commenting on a written report, or obtaining in-line stage approvals for a writing or coding project. The current practice is to leave the work aside, fire off an email program, try to keep track of email communication and later search for approvals and conversations to justify decisions.

"So not only communication can improve [with social media tools] but the quality of work can improve," Dr Gill says.

The report authors estimate between $US900 billion and $1.3 billion ($859 billion to $1.24 billion) of global economic surplus could be "unlocked" through the use of social technologies in private and public sectors.

Two-thirds of that value would come from improved communications and collaboration, however, companies would need to be networked not only technologically, but also behaviourally.

The social utopia is not without risks, however. The report listed identity theft, loss of intellectual property, privacy violations, abuse and damage to reputation as risks derived from the use of social technologies as a business tool, but warned companies that fail to understand their benefits would be at greater risk of having their business model disrupted by the very trend they resist.

The report said companies that stand to gain the most from the social enterprise are those in the technology, professional services, education, media and entertainment, banking, telecommunications and insurance.

Those with lower value potential are in the energy, national governments, pharmaceutical and food and beverage fields.

Email is not likely to disappear altogether, though, says Dr Gill.

"It is not going to be thrown away. But it will be easier to use. Email should be able to be used from [inside] other platforms."

I am also guilty of this. I saw some business associates do this in Europe and have started to stand and work whenever possible. Coupled with sitting in the car, the hours can be even longer.

Until the next time, cheers.

Standing up for office health

Jane Southward

Sydney Morning Herald, June 21, 2012

 

Macquarie Bank introduced activity-based working at its headquarters. Photo: Lee Besford

BANKER Martin Whelan is a man without a desk.

Instead of starting each day at a workstation armed with a computer, swivel chair and some fond family photos, the 44-year-old executive places his bag and overcoat in a locker, turns on his laptop and heads off to a ''workspace''.

Some days he stands at a high desk and clears his emails, on others he lounges on a comfy couch near the in-house cafe, and sometimes he heads for a communal table.

Mr Whelan, general manager of consumer marketing at Commonwealth Bank, said moving around throughout the workday improved his efficiency and provided ''a lot more flexibility''.

But it may also help him to live longer, based on the findings of a recent study from the University of Sydney that found people who sat for eight to 11 hours a day increased their risk of dying by 15 per cent.

A Dutch company, Veldhoen & Co, is building a worldwide business around a concept known as activity-based working. The company's Sydney-based managing partner, Luc Kamperman, said between 80 and 100 companies in Europe and Australia had changed their workspaces to stop staff being chained to a desk with a personal computer.

Macquarie Bank was the first (in 2008) while Commonwealth Bank introduced activity-based working at its headquarters in Sydney's Darling Harbour almost a year ago.

Staff such as Mr Whelan are encouraged to work in different sections of the office, depending on their tasks, and about 10 per cent of desks in each office ''home zone'' are standing work stations in which the desks are set at chest height.

''Some people like going and sitting at a desk that is their own space. I'm lucky I'm not one of those … you need to be more organised and have a more flexible attitude,'' he said.

Jennifer Saiz, Commonwealth Bank's head of property, said the more active work environment had already delivered tangible benefits.

''We surveyed our staff and found, on average, people were sitting down just 50 per cent of the time they were at work,'' she says. ''We thought, 'How can we get people to work better with each other and to do their work more effectively, in a healthier way?'.

''In surveys over the past year since we started it, staff report they are more productive and more engaged thanks to the activity-based working.''

Interest from Australian companies means Veldhoen's Mr Kamperman has settled in Australia to meet the demand. He is now working with Bankwest in Perth and PricewaterhouseCoopers in Canberra and Perth.

''The biggest hurdle is the shift in mindset,'' he said. ''I get thrilled in my job when … you feel like people finally get it, that they have seen the light. They start to acknowledge that they have to change themselves and how they think about work.''

Academic Catriona Bonfiglioli doesn't have the luxury of working in a modern bank building, but is keenly aware of our overreliance on chairs.

A senior lecturer in media studies at the University of Technology Sydney, Dr Bonfiglioli has set up her computer on the top of a filing cabinet and does her best to stand up for close to half the hours she spends at work.

''I wanted to break the nexus between the computer and chair,'' she said. ''People can be sitting 15 hours a day when you add up time at work, time commuting, eating and watching TV or reading.

''I have reduced my sedentary time … I do my emails, admin and editing standing up but for creative work I tend to sit down. People need to rethink their whole relationship with their computer and stop assuming if they are using a computer they have to sit down.''

Her interest was spurred by studies showing that inactivity was damaging to health and even a cause of premature death.

An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare study published in 2007 found physical inactivity was the fifth leading health risk for men after tobacco, high blood pressure, high body mass and high blood cholesterol. And for women, physical inactivity was an even bigger burden than high cholesterol and tobacco.

Adults spend, on average, 90 per cent of their leisure time sitting down, according to University of Sydney researcher Hidde van der Ploeg, and fewer than half meet World Health Organisation recommendations for 150 minutes of at least moderate-intensity physical activity each week.

As for the health benefits of activity-based working, Mr Whelan is in no doubt. ''I'm a surfer and I had compressed vertebrae,'' he said. ''My chiropractor and physiotherapist said the impact of sitting in the same place in the same way all day every day was a bad thing. So the set-up has been good for me.

''It will be interesting to see the long-term effects. At the moment it feels like a healthier building and the variety of environments, from a mental and physical perspective, are brilliant.''

Paul McClure, managing director of Back Centre and Specialty Seating, said demand for standing workstations had increased dramatically in the past three years. Desks that can be adjusted for standing and sitting sell from $950.

''Government departments and big business are really onto this issue now,'' he said.