While perusing the news the other day, I stumbled across an article on SME Web with the following headline: “Study: Women less productive than men”. After getting over my initial shock and disbelief, I clicked through to find the results of a rather interesting study.
OfficeMetrics researched working patterns in the UK and found that overall, the British workforce is less productive than it used to be. Not that hard to believe, given all the distractions….wait, just need to update my Facebook status….we have…..hold on a sec – phone….in the workplace. When you think about it, the number of distractions we deal with on a day-to-day basis is mind boggling. How many of these have you had to deal with today?
Overcommunication - in the form of meetings, email, texts, Instant messaging
Email - or more to the point unnecessary email
Web surfing - we've all done it!
Loud Co-workers
Technology Gliches - email / website down
Business Lunches
Flirting
Unnecessary meetings
An Egomanical boss
Birthday Celebrations - eating cake and pretending you are best friends with the birthday girl/boy.
Anyway, back to my point. The study revealed some interesting titbits when it came to the differences between men and women. On average, women spend more time at work than men, but they generally aren’t as productive. Now, be careful how you interpret that – the MD of OfficeMetrics was quick to point out that “women may be spending less time on work activities but producing better results”. So, bosses and managers – keep that in mind when assessing your employees and don’t judge a woman by her productivity!
