Tuesday 11 March 2008

The real cost of interruptions

We have a PA system here at the office and it's not my favourite thing in the world. I've made no secret of that, but there's a bigger problem than annoyance. It costs real money in lost productivity. Let me demonstrate with some calculations:
Assume 200 people in the office, costing $100 per hour each (charge-out rates, not salary), 4 interruptions per day and 15 minutes of lost productivity per PA interruption. The 15 minutes is recognised as the time required to get back into the "flow" of work. These figures are conservative.
Now, 4 interruptions times 15 minutes times 200 people is 200 hours per day. 200 hours at $100 per hour means our PA system is costing us $20000 daily in lost productivity. If our upper management had to fork out that much deliberately every day to keep the PA system going, I think it would be cut out of the budget fairly quickly.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The problem is that lost productivity is always a hidden cost.
PPS - You pay the employees the same, but there's a potential to use their time better.

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