Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity

November 5, 2007 |

WASHINGTON, DC—According to
a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working—the
physical act of engaging in a productive job-related activity—may
greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday,
especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time
and not working.

"Our findings are astounding: By simply sitting down and doing work,
employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and
services," said Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Charlotte Ponticelli,
who authored the report. "In fact, 'working' may revolutionize the way
people work."

Perhaps even more shocking, the study reveals that not working
significantly decreases worker productivity, sometimes even resulting
in no work getting done at all. Similar findings were reported in the
areas of avoiding work, putting off work, complaining about work
instead of actually working, pretending to work, and ???ing around.

"Fucking around is in fact detrimental to the work process," the study reads in part.

To conduct the study, researchers split the staff of a
Washington-based insurance company into two groups and assigned each
group a series of tasks to be completed by the end of the day. The
control group engaged in normal workplace activities, such as standing
around and talking, staring vacantly at the computer screen, and
surfing the Internet. The other group was instructed to do work and
complete its given tasks. Incredibly, the group that did not do any
work failed to get any work done, while the group that did do work
finished all the work.

The researchers believe that these lessons could possibly be applied to fields outside the insurance industry.

"Based on the study, we can safely conclude that if an employee's
job is to process expense reports, doing a crossword puzzle will result
in the successful completion of that task zero times out of 100, while
processing expense reports will result in the successful completion of
that task 100 times out of 100," head researcher Richard Schoemberg
said.

Jon Halper, a Baltimore-area small-business owner, claims that
people used to laugh whenever he told them that the key to worker
productivity was not checking friends' MySpace pages for hours at a
time, but rather working.

"After this study, I feel vindicated," said Halper, who believes
working is so important that for years he has required all his
employees to work throughout the day. "Hopefully, more companies will
embrace the idea that employees working on things that they are
supposed to do is practically essential."

A similar study conducted at Harvard University over a period of
three years attempted to determine conclusively whether working was
more productive than various different subsets of not working. The
results showed across the board that working is 100 percent more
productive than listening to music and checking e-mails, 100 percent
more productive than meandering around the office socializing with
coworkers, 100 percent more productive than playing online Sudoku, 100
percent more productive than watching YouTube videos of nostalgic
childhood television programming, 100 percent more productive than
reading celebrity-gossip blogs while chatting with friends on Instant
Messenger, 100 percent more productive than napping, and 98.2 percent
more productive than not showing up to work.

Despite the staggering new findings, many American workers say that they still do not feel comfortable working on the job.

"I love coming into work every day," Arlington, VA sales manager
Bryce Davidson said. "I get to have great conversations with [office
receptionist] Sandy, challenge myself with Yahoo! TextTwist, and still
have time to set my fantasy-football roster. Why would I want to ruin
work by working?"