How to keep employees productive and engaged

The personal use of electronic devices during the workday is a growing problem. We’ve all done it — myself included. Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Amazon and LinkedIn are just a few of the many distractions that compete for our time and attention during the workday.

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Based on my 32-plus years of having employees, however, I know that time wasters were around long before the Internet. A 2014 CareerBuilder/Harris Poll survey (below) also found several other activities that interfere with productivity, including:

• Married employees looking at dating websites.
• Caring for a pet bird that was smuggled into work.
• Shaving legs in the women’s restroom.
• Lying under boxes to scare people.
• Having a wrestling match (That one sure could affect your workers comp!).
• Sleeping, but upon confrontation claiming he was praying (I have found employees asleep in their company vehicles on more that one occasion. I always take a photo to show them.).
• Taking selfies in the bathroom.
• Trying on new clothes in a cubicle.

Let’s get engaged

The list could go on forever, but the point is we’ve got some work to do to keep our employees engaged. A 2014 Gallup poll found that only 31.5 percent of employees are engaged in their jobs. Fifty-one percent were not engaged, and 17.5 percent were “actively disengaged” — in other words, completely unenthusiastic about their jobs.

I guess Jack Welch’s rule that worked so well for General Electric for many years is a good one to follow: Every year, the bottom 10 percent of his work force would be replaced or fired. It’s a harsh rule to abide by, but it made Welch one of the best company leaders of all time.

To combat the electronics time-wasters somewhat, I know of several companies that require employees to leave their personal phones in their vehicles or at home.

I’ve also heard it’s a great idea to hire two extra people you can train and have waiting in the wings should they be needed. I know this to be true. I always like to have someone trained and ready to step in when someone abruptly leaves. As an old friend of mine told me a long time ago, “A new broom sweeps clean.”

Top 10 ways employees waste time at work

1. Use of personal cell phone and texting 50%
2. Gossip 42%
3. Internet browsing 39%
4. Social media 38%
5. Snack or smoke breaks 27%
6. Noisy co-workers 24%
7. Meetings 23%
8. Email 23%
9. Co-workers dropping by for a visit 23%
10. Co-workers putting calls on speaker phone 10%

Source: Harris Poll/CareerBuilder 2014 survey

Ray Johnson, a past president of the National Pest Management Association (NPMA), president of Sevierville, Tenn.-based Johnson Pest Control, and founder of ACES for Business, can be reached at ray@johnsonpestcontrol.com.