How many times have you heard the word “Trump” today?
It doesn’t matter where your staff fall on the political spectrum. One thing is clear—EVERYONE (even people without a single political bone in their bodies) is talking about something related to politics. And it’s become strikingly clear that your staff are talking about politics too (ON THE JOB!). In fact, in a recent poll by Betterworks, 87% of workers read about politics on social media during the work day. 77% have conversations during the workday.
And guess what?
It typically takes 23 minutes to resume work at full mental capacity after distractions. So on top of having a workforce that is distracted more often than not by social media and the 24-hour news cycle blasting up-to-the-minute political news, every time a new announcement or post comes out, it is taking your staff an additional 20 minutes or more to get back to fully functioning?
The election might have ended on November 8th, but the office chatter about it—or other related political conversations—has been a non-ending chatter ever since. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier last month that employees read on average 20 Posts EVERY SINGLE DAY about the current political climate. The non-ending news cycle has also stimulated conversations throughout the workplace—it doesn’t matter their political views, your employees are likely wasting work time discussing and reading about the latest political news.
Is this something you’re okay with?
Let’s put these distractions into context… Just think about a 20 minute ‘break’ to discuss politics every workday for the next year (Note: the average worker has dedicated a minimum of daily political chatter 20 minutes in length. If your team is above average, you might be pouring hours of time down the drain all because they’re distracted at work with all sorts of latest news!). If this chatter persists, you’re likely spending over $1300 per employee per year on political chatter! And that’s a REALLY conservative estimate. If your people are getting distracted throughout the day, they may be spending more time thinking about social media posts, frustrated with what other people on Facebook are chattering about, or simply engrossed in the current political mind sweep that they have little or no capacity to function on their daily work tasks.
Do you want office political conversations to be the new normal for your office place?
Personally, I’ve had to limit my social media consumption to evenings and weekends, mainly because the current climate of posts has gotten too distracting from getting my work done. With a political climate that doesn’t seem to be dying down and with folks motivated to protest and spread their messages on social media, with the news media constantly posting the latest news, AND with my networks constantly chattering about everything going on, my sanity needs a break during work. I need to focus on being the best IT support solution for businesses and I feel like your business likely needs a hiatus from social media and news during work, too!
It doesn’t matter whether your team is talking politics, March Madness, the latest TV show—whatever the distraction—your network is likely fueling the fire—instigating additional non-work conversations across the workday.
fitSecure Blocks Distractions:
- Automatically block distracting sites like Facebook, news websites, Twitter, and any other social media or distracting material. That means that anyone connected to your internet will not be inundated with excessive outside distraction throughout the work day.
- On-request reporting on employee traffic usage—if there are workers still distracted, we can help you identify websites that lead your people off track.
- Identify and lock down nefarious traffic to your network through smart heuristic modeling.
Can you go another week with an under-performing team because social media and new stories have taken over their work routines? Can you afford to have lower expectations for staff productivity? Contact me TODAY to discuss how fitSecure can keep your business from outside distractions.
