Over 8,000 respondents rated their preferred method of time killing during two weeks in May on Monster.com’s European website. Respondents, all volunteers who initiated their participation in the survey, were asked to offer their “biggest time wasting vice at work.”

Forty one percent of the respondents said they preferred conversation with colleagues, while one-third said they would rather surf the Internet. Another 15 percent voted for cigarette breaks, while six percent said they participated in on-line chats. Only five percent spent their time with personal phone calls.

According to an article reported in onrec.com, a European online recruiting magazine, and LearnDirect, individual workers in the United Kingdom waste two hours and 45 minutes each day at a cost of $4.75 billion (U.S.) to employers each week. LearnDirect noted, however, that the Internet could actually be improving productivity by cutting down on phone calls with quick personal messages that could be readily copied to numerous people (such as making weekend plans or giving directions).

Monster Europe’s head of communications told onrec.com that employers could attempt to combat the problem of unproductive office chit-chat by reinstating the full-hour lunch break so employees could catch up on conversations at that time. No word, however, on how much time the respondents killed taking the voluntary survey.

Source: onrec.com