Admin and IT are big time wasters

Tell us something we don’t know. But did you know that only the Portuguese waste as many working hours as Australians, according to an international study of company-level productivity by Proudfoot Consulting.

Australians waste about 45 days a year at work, representing almost 20% of the 234 days a year on average worked each year. The wastage costs $78 billion and the figure is rising.

Working time is wasted by non-value-add administration tasks and work being delayed by not having appropriate IT systems in place.

On the flip side, Australia is ranked well for productivity. Australia was in the top two locations (behind France and ahead of the United States) for the highest labour productivity for the four years from 2003 to 2006.

The take home message is that we are productive but we could do a lot better by changing inefficient processes in our businesses. Given the increasing skills shortage, instead of working around inefficient processes, they should be challenged.