In this guide we will tell you what to do if your employees are wasting time on apps and how to prevent it.
Common Reasons Employees Waste Time on Apps
- No clear goals
When employees don’t know when they need to finish their tasks or what their deadlines are, they start wasting time on other apps.
- Work is too repetitive or stressful
When employees are given the same task repeatedly, or a task that involves a lot of pressure, to relieve stress and boredom, they start using non-work-related apps for entertainment.
- Remote work confusion
Because employees aren’t working in front of you and you can’t see their screens, some employees use non-work-related apps during work hours. They misuse the freedom of remote work.
- No monitoring
When employees’ work isn’t checked, their usage of other apps automatically increases, which slowly reduces their productivity.
Once you understand all the reasons why employees are wasting time on apps you will understand everything without blaming anyone and this will also allow you to find solutions to these problems.
How App Time Wasting Hurts the Company
When employees spend lots of time on apps it leads to decreased productivity and this loss of productivity harms the company. Let’s discuss some important consequences
- Missed Deadlines
Because employees are not focused on completing their work and their attention is diverted to other apps, their work speed slows down, leading to missed deadlines.
- Missing Team Targets
When employees fail to meet work deadlines, it affects the entire team, and the team gradually starts missing its targets as well.
- High Performers Feel Frustrated
When work isn’t being checked, and the employee sitting next to you is playing on social media, it can be distracting and frustrating for high-performing employees.
- Company costs increase
When you feel that employees are not able to complete their work because they are distracted by other apps, you hire senior staff to manage them, which increases your company’s costs.
- Manager-employee trust breaks down
This happens because the manager blindly trusts many employees and assuming they are doing their work well. But when the manager checks the work, they find it incomplete and full of mistakes. This breaks the trust between the manager and the employee.
All managers and everyone else should act quickly and solve problems to prevent the company from suffering losses.
How to Stop Employees Wasting Time on Apps
- Talk First, Don’t Accuse
Before taking any strict action, talk to the employee, find out what’s going on, why they are wasting time on apps, and ask them what difficulties they are facing in doing their work.
- Set Clear Daily and Weekly Goals
Once you understand the problem, they are facing in completing the task, the next step is to provide them with complete information about the task and also specify the deadline so that they know their work goals.
- Create Simple App Usage Rules
Once you’ve given them all the necessary tasks, also tell them which apps are allowed to be used while working and which are not, so they have clarity about app usage.
- Make Employees Aware of Time Value
Always teach your employees to value time, because wasting time will become a major cause of harm to their careers. You can explain this to them by giving them some examples. If you waste 10 minutes of time and you do this six times, you end up wasting an entire hour.
- Review App Usage Data Regularly
You will need to monitor your employees’ app usage daily, as this isn’t a one-time task. It’s not a matter of tracking usage once and being done with it. When employees realise that their application usage is being tracked daily, they will stop wasting time.
And if you think you can’t disable application tracking manually, then you can use our best application tracking tool, which works at an advanced level.
Legal and Ethical Way to Handle App Misuse
Whenever you use application tracking, ensure you fully respect employee privacy, as this makes employees feel safe and secure. Inform them in advance about certain things, such as:
- Inform employees that monitoring has started.
- Only track work-related data, not personal apps like WhatsApp.
- Avoid accessing their personal emails.
This will prevent employees from becoming demotivated and allow them to focus on their productivity.
How HR Helps Control App Time Waste at Work
HR is one of the most important roles in a company and it holds a lot of power. One of its most important functions is ensuring that employees don’t waste time using other apps.
- Create a clear application usage policy
Develop a policy that clearly states which official apps employees are allowed to use for work and which apps are strictly prohibited. This will benefit employees by giving them prior knowledge of the app usage guidelines.
- Train your managers
Train all the managers in your company and inform them which apps are approved for official use and which ones are banned and should not be used at all.
- Review productivity reports
Review employee productivity reports on a weekly or monthly basis to see how their productivity has changed since they stopped wasting time on apps. If you want an even easier way to track productivity, you can use our top-rated productivity tracking software.
Manager’s Role in Reducing App Distractions
Managers can also help prevent time wasting on apps by doing the following:
- Regularly explaining the benefits of not wasting time and how it positively impacts their work.
- Always focusing on their results rather than their screen time employees also become frustrated if managers constantly monitor their screens.
Final Thoughts on Employees Wasting Time on Apps
You must have understood why employees waste time on apps and how this can be prevented. How they can be tracked using various tools and what the role of HR and managers is in all of this. I would also like to add that while tracking is important, employee support is important because when an employee willingly stops wasting time on apps and becomes self-motivated to work