How Poor Communications Cost Firms Millions

Ineffective Communications Waste Millions a Year

Technology enables many modes of communication, but when they are not used appropriately for the task at hand, it results in inefficiency and wasted money.

Reading and replying to emails: 80,
Face-to-face meetings: 71,
Calls from desk phone: 49,
Calls from mobile: 46,
Conference calls, including web conferencing: 42,
Online collaboration; document and screen sharing: 39

Phone calls remain the dominant task, with about 95 minutes spent on desk and mobile phone calls. Emails come in second, taking up 80 minutes of employees’ time.

Respondents were asked to rate their efficiency in reading and replying to emails, responding to mobile calls and calls on their desk phone, face-to-face meetings, online collaboration, and chat, text and instant messaging. The average rating for each mode was 79% efficiency.

This inefficiency may be due to a failure to use the right communication tool for the task at hand. For example, email is often used for chat, but it’s better for documenting conversations among multiple participants.

Employees spend 6.03 hours a day on communications and collaboration tasks (68.6% of their time). They lose 1.26 hours due to inefficiencies (20.9%).

Time lost due to inefficiencies is an average of $11,000 per employee.

Companies often have a combination of incompatible communications tools and applications. As a result, productivity decreases and teamwork breaks down.