There’s More to Productivity than “Time Management”
We often ask organizations if they have any “productivity initiatives” underway at their companies. Frequently, they reply, “Well, no. This year we’re focusing instead on better communication.”
As if there’s no connection between communication and productivity.
Ever stop to think about how much time is wasted reading things that are poorly written? Imagine, for example, that someone in your company has written a report describing the outcome, say, of a product evaluation. The outcome of this evaluation has implications for projects, standards, direction-setting for the whole company, so understanding how the evaluation was conducted, as well as who won, is important.
Unfortunately, the report isn’t very concise and, even worse, it’s boring. You’d think something as pivotal to the future of the company would be at least a little compelling, but the author(s) of this report have really managed to strip the topic of all its shine. Still, you and others manage to slog through it because it will be a topic for discussion at several meetings, and you need to be prepared.
Had the report been concise, well-organized and interesting to read, you could probably have read the whole thing in 15 minutes. Instead, it took you 30. Imagine the average salary of the people reading this report was $50,000 a year or $.43 a minute (not including benefits or other overhead costs often factored into employee cost). You, personally, wasted 15 minutes grinding through this awful essay. So did 25 other people who had the same reading assignment.
Think of the financial implications:
(minutes wasted * cost per minute) * number of people = lost productivity
So in our example, (15 wasted minutes * $.43) * 26 people = $167.70.
On just one poorly written report!
Better communication translates directly to better productivity and cost savings, whether it’s in the form of well-edited, well-delivered presentations, or succinct, interesting, effective documents. So, if you have a “communication initiative” at your company, you also have a “productivity initiative” underway.
Tags: Business Communication, business writing, cost savings, expense reduction, poor writing, productivity, time management
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