New research has shown that unproductive days cost businesses £250 million a year. We look at the main causes and how you can address them.

In other news, there’s also a report showing that the average small business spend 28 hours a week on admin. And there’s generally good news about how prepared small businesses are for automatic enrolment.

Top news stories

Small business admin burden costs UK £4.7 billion

Admin tasks cost small firms 28 hours a week , accounting for a £5 billion annual shortfall to the UK economy.

Majority of small businesses quick to sign up to workplace pensions provider

32% of companies that signed up with NOW:Pensions were six months or more ahead of their staging date. But another 26% completed their application either very close to their staging date or after the deadline had passed.

Unproductive days cost businesses £250 million every year

Load talking, phone calls and unnecessary meeting were the biggest issues.

Three quarters of small businesses think mobile technology impresses customers

New research shows that improved customer perception is seen as the biggest overall benefit when it comes to investing in app marketing.

Most common lies told by British workers

From lies about overtime and illness to exaggerating expenses and mileage, more than half of workers have not been truthful with their employer.

Key dates for your diary

Nothing significant this week.

Becoming more productive

How productive are your employees? The startling news for businesses is that while most people get paid for working a 5-day week, a recent survey showed that workers said that they’re actually productive for an average of 3.6 days per week.

So what can you do to make your office a more productive place? We look at the distractions that employees said had the biggest effect and offer advice about how you can address the issues to make your team more productive.

Loud talkers

57% of people said they were distracted by this. It can be a tricky one to address unless you want your office to be like a library (shhh!). But there are some things you can do. If your office is big enough, introduce a quiet area where employees can focus on their work. Or you could let people work from an empty meeting room, get off-site or work from home if they have a specific task they need to complete.

Ringing phones

With 39% saying they are affected by this, it’s important to address it. But again, it can be hard to deal with, as you need to make sure you’re available to your customers.

However, many of the calls may be from marketing and other companies. If that’s the case, you could register for the corporate telephone preference service which helps to eliminate unnecessary and nuisance calls.

You could also look at whether it’s feasible to allow your employees to work flexi-time, where they start work early or finish late. This means they will be at work partly outside office hours and may find the phone rings less during those times.

Unnecessary meetings

26% of people said they often don’t need to be in meetings and therefore lose time that could be better used. You could address this by looking to see who really needs to be involved (something that Steve Jobs famously used to do) and make sure there’s a clear agenda.

Keeping meetings short also helps - many companies now have standing meetings so people are less likely to linger.

Finally, you could also consider if there’s another way to communicate. Online collaboration tools can be used instead of meeting up and have the added advantage of keeping a record, so no one needs to write up the minutes.

Emails

22% of people report that emails affected their productivity. We recently offered advice about managing email overload, so do check out the tips.

Making tea rounds

Ah, we do love our cuppas. However, 18% of people said they were less productive as a result of taking time out to put the kettle on.

You could introduce a tea rota - this shares the task and it doesn’t take that much longer to make five cups than one. You could also look at having a pot of coffee brewed in the morning so it’s available throughout the day.

But before you withdraw tea privileges (and possibly incite a mutiny), bear in mind that tea breaks can increase efficiency. They allow your employees to get away from their desk and the break can stimulate new ideas. They’ve also been found to build engagement and collaboration. We’ll drink to that.