The effects of low productivity on business growth

Are you struggling to stay ahead of your competitors? According to the Productivity Prohibitors infographic created by SurePayroll, lost productivity costs employers $1.8 trillion each year. Some of these losses are from sources you’d expect. For example, the average employee spends five hours surfing the web each week.

Many companies spend significant time and money talking to productivity experts to make business more efficient. But even with help, it can be tough to find simple, scalable ways to boost workplace productivity. Some of the major causes include loud colleagues, impromptu meetings, snack breaks, social media and the internet.

The overall impact of low productivity

Low productivity creates a cascade of problems. When there are issues with workflow, poor decision-making or scope creep, it can cause low morale within your entire team. Employees don’t want to feel like they’re wasting their time. If a project’s moving at a snail’s pace, they often disengage.

This is particularly common among top performers. Your best employees strive to be successful, but they can’t do their best if other teams aren’t keeping up. Before long, your high-flying stars might get incredibly frustrated and discouraged. When that happens, they’re more likely to quit and take their skills to the competition.

According to a 2019 survey done by SHRM, known as the “High Cost of a Toxic Workplace Culture,” one out of five employees leaves a job because of a poor work environment. Losing inspirational team members can also deflate those left behind. Demoralization can have a domino effect of higher absenteeism, more missed deadlines and attrition.

How low productivity affects growth

Poor productivity can also stifle creativity. Whether due to team friction or low morale, lower-quality or less-engaged workers make it much harder to fast-track new, innovative products.

When a company has frequent absenteeism and high turnover rates, it will suffer from lower output and profitability. This means each dollar you spend on labor leads to fewer dollars in earnings. Unless something changes, your business growth will falter.

How Slack improves productivity and efficiency

Boosting productivity means working smarter, not harder. Slack is a powerful platform for connecting tools and teams efficiently. Offering linear and nonlinear collaboration enables faster team interactions and more-effective project planning, ultimately impacting the bottom line. Because the entire process happens online, your team can work remotely, instantly share files, organize team channels and pin conversations or documents for easy access no matter the time zone.

Context shifting is another major obstacle to employee productivity. Slack cuts down on time wasted switching between apps by integrating directly with tools like Google Docs, Zoom and Salesforce, so all your workflows are in one place. By using Slack Connect, you can compile conversations with external clients, customers and other vendors into their own channels. Meanwhile, Slack’s Workflow Builder allows you to automate communication activities and routine tasks.

Based on a 2019 survey of the more than 12 million active Slack users, individuals spend at least 90 minutes working through Slack each day. This prevents other employees from being unnecessarily distracted and allows you to get the right people working on the right project.

Boost productivity with the right tools

When humans are involved, there will always be distractions and unforeseen events that impact productivity. But they don’t have to harm profitability. Effective collaborative tools like Slack head those losses off at the pass, allowing your teams to stay focused and nimble.