Click your way to a million dollars!

Colin Scroggins and Mike Kline ask, “How often do you receive a meeting announcement by email, rather than by Outlook meeting request?” To make sure you remember the meeting you must now enter this into Outlook as an appointment. This seemingly small interruption has huge consequences, as the lost productivity is multiplied across the entire employee base.

For example: Technology is available to schedule a team meeting, but it is not being utilized by all. You are in your office and someone sends out an e-mail notifying you of a weekly staff meeting. Instead of one individual setting up a convenient Outlook Calendar request for the team, everyone is required to set-up the meeting in their own calendars. On average, every distraction during the day wastes approximately 15 minutes. We don’t know about you, but our first response is absolute disgust. Why are some individuals not utilizing available technology to enhance their ability to deliver what we are all being paid to accomplish? Are there any overall hidden intangible costs?

Let's interpret the data?

15 Minutes/Interruption
x 52 Weeks
= 13 Hours/Year
x $15.00/Hour
= $195.00
x 7500 Employees
= $1,462,500 million dollars a year in wasted time/productivity

Now think about It: How many meetings per week does this occur? If the number is greater than zero, than it is one too many times. How many times are these individually scheduled meetings canceled? Any way you slice it, under utilized time, wastes dollars which are directly tied to salary and lost productivity. I didn’t even calculate the following:

• Meeting rescheduling
• Meeting cancellation
• Change of venue
• Cross-referencing existing calendar events
  

All of these actions are automated when using Outlook’s built-in meeting request features, plus these requests can be forwarded to third parties, saving other parties the same loss in productivity.

Cost avoidance is cost savings: We live in a culture where time is money.

All under-utilized time wastes dollars which are directly tied to personnel and resources. By using the tools provided by the Corporation to streamline your business processes, you reduce the operation costs across the business. By not utilizing the tools provided you are promoting fraud, waste and abuse. Good stewardship of money is essential to business success. Organizations can cut costs by reducing head count or by using technology effectively. How much money are you wasting? What would you do with 1.4 Million dollars or more?