Employee Productivity Statistics (New Research in 2022)

New Employee Productivity Statistics in 2022

Let’s take a look at what we asked and more details of the new employee productivity statistics in more detail.

Question 1: Do You Work From Home?

• 9% work 1 day a week from home
• 13% work from home 2 days a week
• 16% work from home 3 days a week
• 10% work from home 4 days a week
• 13% work from home 5 days a week
• 39% do not work from home
• On average, people work 2 days a week from home
• On average, those that work from home work 3 days a week

Question 2: How Many Hours Are You Productive Each Day?

• Fewer than 15% of people are productive for 7 hours or more per day
• 12% are productive between 6-7 hours a day
• 24% of people are productive for 5-6 hours a day
• 50% of people are productive for more than 5 hours a day
• 29% of people are productive for less than 4 hours a day

Analysis: Are People More Productive Working From Home Or In An Office?

We cross-referenced the number of hours people said they were productive each day with the number of days they worked from home each week. With this, we were able to show how productive hours was affected by the number of days people worked from home each week.

• People that work from home 5 days a week have the highest productivity at 5.3 hours per day (the yellow line)
• The second most productive people do not work from home with 5.0 productive hours per day
• In the US, the least most productive people 2 days a week from home
• In the UK the least most productive work 1 day at home each week

Question 3: When Working From Home, Do You Have Access To Resources You Need?

We asked people whether they have access to the resources they need (eg. software, materials, equipment, support services, etc.). Over 90% say they have access to the resources they need. Only 5% say they do not, so there are only a small number of people whose productivity could be improved with better support when working from home.

• 43% Strongly agree
• 47% Agree
• 4% neither agree or disagree
• 5% disagree
• 0% strongly disagree

Question 4: In The Past 12 Months, Have You Had To Take Time Off With Covid-19?

• 53% of people have had to take time off because of Covid-19
• 12.33% of people had to take 7-10 days off work
• 23.33% had to take between 5-10 days off work
• 6.33% had to take off more than 10 days
• 3.8 days is the average time people have had to take off for Covid-19
• Ten days off is equivalent to a 4.2% decrease in productivity over a full working year
• In the US, with 160 million workers, 53% of the workforce taking on average 3.8 days a year off for Covid-19 represents 2.58 billion hours, which at a chargeable value of $100 an hour represents a loss of $258 billion a year

Analysis: How Does Time Lost To Covid-19 Vary By Home Working?

We cross-referenced the days lost to Covid-19  by the number of days people work from home, which revealed the following:

• On average, people have taken 3.8 days off in the past 12 months due to Covid-19
• People who work one day a week from home lost the most time to Covid-19, on average 5 days a year
• People who worked five days a week from home lost the least time to Covid-19 of 2.6 days a year
• People who did not work from home lost 3.13 days to Covid-19

Question 5: Do You Work From Home More Now Than You Did In February 2020?

• 78% say yes
• 22% say no

Question 6: Have The Number Of Work Meetings You Attend Increased Since February 2020?

• 52% say the number of work meetings has increased since February 2020
• 64% of the people that work from home say that the number of work meetings has increased since February 2020
• 26% of the people that do not work from home say that the number of work meetings has increased since February 2020
• With 78% of people working from home more now than they did before February 2020 and 64% these people saying the number of work meetings has increased, home workers are spending more time in meetings

Question 7: Do You Feel Your Time Is Sometimes Wasted In Work Meetings?

• 73% of people feel they waste time in meetings
• 80% of people that work from home feel they waste time in work meetings
• 30% say they waste less than 30 minutes a day
• 25% say 30-60 minutes are wasted in work meetings each day
• On average, people that work from home say they waste 47 minutes a day in meetings, people that do not work from home average 21 minutes a day wasted

Question 8: During Work Meetings, Have You Ever:

• 53% say they Daydream in meetings often or all the time
• 12% have Fallen asleep in meetings often or all the time
• 11% have missed a mandatory meeting often or all the time
• 36% do other work in meetings often or all the time
• 12% say they often or always feel meetings are ineffective or poorly organized
• 45% often or always feel their meetings are a waste of time

Question 9: What Are Your Greatest Distractors Or Prohibitors To Better Productivity?

• 62% say their smartphone is a high or very high
• 57% rank the internet as a high or very high distractor
• 48% say social media is a high or very high distractor
• 41% ranked notifications as a high or very high distractor
• When the medium level is included, notifications become the third highest at 70%

Question 10: Do You Use Personal Social Media At Work?

We asked people whether they use social media at work and how much time they spend on social media.

• 73% of people use personal social media at work
• 25% of people say they never use personal social media at work
• People that work from home spend on average 55 minutes a day on personal social media
• People that do not work from home spend on average 50 minutes a day on personal social media
• On average, those that use it, spend 53 minutes a day on personal social media, a productivity loss of 11%

Question 11/A: What Techniques Do People With The Highest Productivity Use?

We asked people with the highest employee productivity levels of 5-6, 6-7 and greater than 7 hours a day to rank the various techniques that help them achieve their above-average productivity. We asked them to rank them as being: ‘Very effective’, ‘Effective’, ‘Somewhat effective’, ‘Not effective’, or ‘I don’t do this’:

• 84% said having a good work / life balance was very effective or effective
• 74% said keeping their workspace clean and clear of clutter was very effective or effective
• 71% said making a to-do list was very effective or effective
• The order of the top 4 items was unchanged when the “somewhat effective” statistics were included, but ‘taking regular breaks’ moved up into fifth place, replacing ‘having a good chair’
• Using a timer was ranked as the least effective technique

Question 11/B: Which Techniques Do People With The LOWEST Productivity Think Would Improve Their Productivity The Most?

Whereas productive people were asked what helped them be productive, we asked the people with lower productivity what they thought would help them improve their productivity.

Employee Productivity Statistics Summary

We set out to gather employee productivity statistics about the number of people working from home, we asked them to quantify their productivity and provide data on what where time is lost at work and what techniques they use or think would help them improve their productivity. In summary:

• More people are working from home than before Covid-19
• The most productive people work from home 5 days a week and have average productivity of 5.3 hours per day
• 64% of the people that work from home say the number of work meetings has increased
• 73% feel they waste time in meetings
• 73% of people use personal social media at work on average for 53 minutes a day
• The techniques the people with the lowest productivity say will help them improve their productivity are the same techniques people with high productivity use to achieve high productivity

Ways To Improve Employee Productivity

The study shows that there are some relatively simple ways for people to improve productivity:

• Turn Off Notifications. These can be very distracting, take your mind off task and waste time
• Avoid Wasteful Meetings. Home and remote working has lead to more meetings, with increases in lost time. Review the number of meetings you have and try to reduce them or work with others to try to make them more efficient
• People who work 5 days a week from home are the most productive. If you work from home occasionally, try working from home for 5 days one week and less the week after and see if it works for you
• Minimize risk of having to take time off work for sickness.
• The techniques the most productive people work, try implementing the top productivity techniques you don’t currently use
• Windows users, upgrade To Windows 11. The new taskbar has a bar under open app icons that turns light red when there are new items. This is a very efficient alternative to distracting notifications as a quick glance to the bottom of your screen tells you if there is anything new without having to open those apps. A real productivity improvement
• Avoid Personal Social Media, it accounts for an average loss of 47 minutes a day – turn off social media notifications and try limit usage to breaks only
• People know what they need to do to improve their productivity, they just don’t do it (see Q11B and compare to Q11A) – by investing in training and materials, employers would reap the benefits of improved employee productivity

Employee Productivity Research Details

Timewatch carried out this research in early July 2022 with Pollfish. 300 people were surveyed in the US, UK, Australia and Canada. The poll was split as follows:

• Male 43%, Female 57%
• 36% 25-34 years of age
• 14% 35-44 years of age
• 40% 45-54 years of age
• 10% > 54 years of age

Company Size:

• 8% 26-50 Employees
• 12% 51-100 Employees
• 8% 101-250 Employees
• 15% 501-1000 Employees
• 16% 1001-5000 Employees
• 26% > 5000 Employees

Who Is Timewatch? What Does Timewatch Do?

Timewatch is a cloud software solutions provider. We develop and supply a range of products in the professional services automation space including: Whitespace ^®, our resource scheduling software and resource planning software; Time ^®, our timesheet and time tracking software; OutlookTime ^®, our Outlook timesheet software; Time&Money ^®, our project costing and time billing software, and Time&Space ^®, our professional services automation solution. We aim to help our customers understand and improve their employees’ utilization, productivity, billability and streamline their organization’s resource scheduling, time tracking and project billing.

Our interest in employee productivity fulfills our aim to understand changes in the marketplace better and to improve our products, and design new products. We make this data freely available to others on the basis that our copyright is respected. You are welcome to republish this data, but please include the text “(C) Copyright Timewatc Inc” and a link to this page.

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