Citation
(2010), "Lies, damned lies and …", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2010.07959cab.003
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Lies, damned lies and …
Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 59, Issue 3
One IT services and technology company believes social networking is costing UK businesses $2.25 billion each year.
Morse surveyed 1,460 office workers, and on average, they admitted to spending 40 minutes per week on Twitter, Facebook, and the like. Morse did some multiplying and came up with the figure $2.25 billion (or actually, £1.38 billion) in lost productivity.
However, this is too simplistic. We do not know how much “better” those employees felt through maintaining those social contacts … and how much more productive they were as a result.
The lesson – if you want to make a point about productivity, measure both elements of the ratio. Producing losses or gains by measuring one input factor only is unlikely to give a sensible figure.