By Michael Solomon, 10x Management Co-Founder
If you’ve been having a hard time focusing at work lately, you’re not alone. Take Pepsi’s recent advertising debacle as a perfect example of an irresistible workplace distraction. The day Pepsi’s controversial ad aired, the soft drink brand was brought up more than 1 million times across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The ad ramped up 1.8 million views on YouTube within 48 hours, including 18,000 dislikes and 3,000 likes. Digital content engagement related to Pepsi went up 7,000% the day the ad debuted. People cannot help themselves from weighing in on controversies with today’s social outlets. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has a platform to voice that opinion. While that’s great for expressing our opinions, it can be a little bit of a problem when it comes to work.
Research shows that about 75 million work hours were lost to water cooler talk last year, while 22% of employees admit to wasting 2 or more hours per day. Why all the sudden lost hours? In a world where we are instantly connected to news all around us, workplace distractions have become a serious problem for companies. Multiply that by the partisan environment we live in and the divisive opinions on the Trump administration, the Supreme Court, domestic social injustices, and of course soft drink advertisements, people are finding it harder to concentrate at the office now more than ever.
When 22% of employees are wasting 2 hours or more per day, that is the equivalent of losing nearly 6% of your total productivity. Take into account the added useless meetings, procedural protocols, ping pong matches and other time wasters , and it is likely that your business is running at a much lower efficiency rate than it should be. Why should your company run at a 90% efficiency rate when 100% is the goal?
Hiring freelancers can do a lot to improve efficiency at businesses of all sizes. Freelancers are judged only on the outcome of the work that they provide, and the results are far more measurable than they are with a full-time employee. If a freelancer spends the day on social media talking about Pepsi, you will know about it because they will be billing for work that was not completed. It’s really that simple. At 10x Management, we vet the greatest on-demand tech talent in the world, and the benefits that our talent provide to companies always brings a smile to our faces. In addition to the operational improvements that our freelancers provide to companies, 10xers also bring a fresh perspective, a new set of skills, and a strong voice to a project. We love it when we receive feedback from companies talking about how pleasantly surprised they were that such great work could be provided by tech freelancers. We try to warn them beforehand, but for some reason, seeing is better than believing.
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