Employee productivity research reveals that the average office worker is only productive for around 3 hours daily, and there’s a growing trend of remote employees reporting higher productivity levels. This shift clearly highlights the importance of fostering an environment that prioritizes focused work, regardless of location.
If we look at the bigger picture, the overall productivity in the United States has grown significantly over the past few decades. From 1979 to 2020, net productivity per worker increased a staggering 253%.
However, it’s important to remember that productivity metrics can vary greatly depending on the industry, role, and even how you define “productive.”
According to Gallup, highly engaged teams are 21% more productive, and 28% fewer internal thefts are recorded among them.
Let us take a look at these interesting insights on employee productivity.
Employee Productivity Stats: Top Picks 2024
- The average productivity time for an employee is recorded to be 2 hours and 53 minutes each day.
- Engaged employees are more productive, resulting in a 21% increase in the company’s profit.
- The net productivity of an average American worker has increased by 253% in the last seven decades.
- A good employee productivity percentage is over 70%.
- On average, the worker is productive 60% of the time or less daily.
- However, most workers are productive only for 31% of their workday.
- Only 7% of the people reported feeling productive at their workplace.
- Multi-tasking can reduce the productivity of employees by 40%.
- Productive companies have 30 to 50% higher operating margins.
What Is Employee Productivity?
Employee productivity, also referred to as workforce productivity, is the amount of work an employee can accomplish within a certain time period.
It is measured by the output of an employee over a specific time. Usually, productivity is measured relative to the average for employees doing similar work.
How productive is the average person at work?
- An average worker is productive for 60% of the day or less daily.
Research conducted by Voucher Cloud highlighted that an average office worker is productive only for 2 hours and 53 minutes daily.
Employees are interrupted every three and five minutes at work, and inefficient meetings add up to employees’ unproductivity.
Once interrupted, it takes 23 minutes for employees to refocus.
Source: Apollo technical.
Employee Productivity Rate
- A good employee productivity percentage is about 70%.
Business operations and consultants often discuss employee productivity in terms of how many revenue-generating activities an employee performs in a day.
Businesses typically find satisfaction in a productivity range of 70% to 75%. The expectation is that no employee should allocate more than 25% of their time to non-work activities.
Source: Zippia.
- The net productivity of an average American worker has increased by 253% in the last seven decades.
Wages have increased by 116% in the same period.
Between 1948 and 1979, productivity and wages grew at a similar rate of 108% and 93%, respectively.
But after that, the increase in wages slowed down. Productivity increased by 70% every year, while wages increased by only 12%.
Source: Goremotely.
- Only 7% of the employees feel productive in the workplace.
A significant number of employees experience feelings of unproductivity, and this can be attributed to prevalent distractions throughout their workday.
Moreover, a majority of workers believe they can achieve higher productivity levels when working from the comfort of their homes.
Productivity Statistics in the Workplace
- 63% of the Workers prefer work-life balance over higher pay jobs.
The importance of work-life balance has grown over the past years. Even though pay is a vital component, employees give more preference to work-life balance.
Some employees are even ready to leave a high-paying job and look for a new one that provides a better work-life balance.
Source: Flex jobs.
- The days without meetings increase the productivity by 22%.
Companies have implemented no-meeting days over the past few years to maintain high productivity rates.
Reducing meetings to just one day a week increases productivity rates by over one-fifth.
However, some companies still fail to implement no-meeting days, reducing employee productivity rates.
Source: MIT.
Did You Know? Every dollar invested by IBM in the online training of its employees resulted in $30 in productivity. To know more such insights, read our article on eLearning Stats.
Work From Home Productivity Statistics
- Employees working from home are 52% less likely to take time off work.
This is highly possible due to the home environment fostering job satisfaction, and reducing burnout, and promoting mental health.
Also, employees working remotely (from home) often continue working from home without calling in sick and use less vacation time.
- The employees working from home had a 13% increase in productivity.
Remote employees work 9% more time in minutes per day.
The employees who work from home are rarely late to work and have fewer distractions. Additionally, they spend less time gossiping and chatting with colleagues and take shorter lunch breaks.
Also, the employees take less sick leaves when working from home. They also have 4% more output per minute compared to the employees working from the office.
Source: The Hill.
- Employees allowed to work from home just once a month are 24% happier at work.
Most of the employees are not satisfied and happy at work. However, providing work-from-home can turn the table around.
The job satisfaction in such cases increases by one-fourth. That is a fairly small price to pay for increased productivity and satisfaction.
Source: Apollo technical.
- 60% of the employees feel they would be more productive if they worked from home.
For the most part, this conclusion is reached because 76% of employees want fewer interruptions from colleagues and other distractions.
At the same time, 70% want to reduce stress from commuting, and 69% want to avoid office politics.
Freelancer Productivity Statistics
- Freelancers are productive 36 hours a week.
If we consider that freelancers work five days a week, then freelancers are productive for almost 7 hours a day.
They work harder compared to people in other professions. This is because they are directly paid for the hours they work and the output they deliver.
Inefficient freelancers with low productivity fail to get paid if they do not deliver the required output in an hour.
According to another study, 28.60% of freelancers work more than 30 hours a week.
The following table displays the share of freelancers that spend different amounts of time at work.
| Number of hours worked in a week | Percentage of Freelancers |
|---|---|
| More than 30 hours | 28.60% |
| 21 to 30 hours | 19.50% |
| 10 to 20 hours | 36.10% |
| Less than 10 hours | 15.80% |
Source: Yahoo Finance, Credit Donkey.
Factors Affecting Employee Productivity
- 46% of employees feel as though digital tools make them more productive.
In fact, only 7% of workers believe that technology has decreased their productivity.
According to these employees, the most important digital tools they use are email (61) and the internet (54%).
Research has shown that companies that use digital tools are up to 40% more productive than others.
- Constant Interruptions lead to a lot of unproductivity.
According to a study conducted by the University of California in Irvine, employees — experienced interruptions at an alarming frequency, occurring approximately every three minutes and five seconds.
The aftermath of these disruptions was significant, as it took workers precisely 23 minutes and 15 seconds to recover and regain their focus. That’s a lot of time and a matter of concern.
Source: Department Of Informatics
- Twenty-four billion hours are wasted each year as a result of unproductive meetings.
24 billion hours is a considerable amount of productive work hours being lost.
And at least 37% of employees consider unproductive meetings the biggest cost to their organization.
Remote Work vs Office Productivity
- 18% of the workers randomly assigned to work from home full time were 18% less productive than in-office employees.
They also need longer time to complete tasks and fewer tasks than full-time office workers.
Hence, a recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that remote working might not be as productive as thought.
Source: Forbes.
- Employees can save 408 hours in a year if they work from home.
With no need to travel to the office, employees have the opportunity to commence their workday earlier.
According to the Airtasker survey, the average worker enjoys a weekly time savings of 8.5 hours by eliminating the commute. Over the course of a year, this accumulation amounts to a total of 408 hours saved.
Source: Airtasker
- 28% of in-office workers reported that their commute negatively impacted their productivity.
Comparatively, only 18% of the employees said so.
This is one of the major differences between in-office and remote workers. The productivity of remote workers is not affected as they do not commute.
The following table displays the major differences between remote and in-office workers.
| Employees | In-office Workers | Remote Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Distracted by office politics | 25% | 15% |
| Affected by colleagues’ interruptions | 34% | 16% |
| Negatively impacted by commute | 28% | 18% |
Source: goalto.
