Social networking causes productivity loss in India

Employees’ surfing of social networking websites like Facebook while at work causing 12.5% loss in productivity in India: Survey

A survey has revealed that companies in India are losing productivity by as much as 12.5% because of office employees spending “too much time” on social networking websites.

According to the findings of the survey conducted by the Social Development Foundation, of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham), office employees questioned said they spent, on an average, one hour a day on websites like Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, and Linkedin – resulting in a loss of productivity of about 12.5%.

The findings are based on responses given by around 4,000 corporate employees questioned the survey which was conducted in September, October and November 2009.

A report of the findings of the survey said that “nearly 12.5% of productivity of human resource in the corporate sector” is misappropriated each day since large numbers of employees “spend their time” accessing social networking websites during the office hours for “romancing and other purposes.”

Reacting to what the survey has revealed, D S Rawat, secretary-general of Assocham, remarked that the increasing browsing of websites can be “dangerous” for overall productivity and that IT firms have already installed software to restrict the use of social networking websites.

The survey conducted by the Social Development Foundation, of Assocham, questioned 4,000 employees, between the ages of 21 and 60, in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kanpur, Dehradun, Indore, Chennai, Bangalore, and Kochi.

The following facts were brought to light in the survey: 77% of workers having Orkut accounts used them during working hours; about half of the office employees accessed Facebook during working hours; four in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut or Facebook profile while at work; and around 83% of employees saw “nothing wrong” in surfing while at work or during office hours.

The survey showed that 19% of companies in India allow use of social networking websites only for business purposes, and 16% of the companies allow these websites for personal use.

Of the 4,000 corporate employees interviewed, only 40% said their companies allowed employees full access to social networking websites.

Yet another fact that the Assocham’s survey found was that 84% of respondents in the major cities of India show signs of “internet addiction” – instead of taking breaks at the allotted times, they opted to spend “more than a normal amount of time” online. And, these “internet addicts’ can get irritable if they are interrupted while surfing.