{by Steven Lerner, aplus.com}

 
If you’re reading this article during work, then you are probably contributing to your job’s workplace productivity deficiency.  It is estimated that U.S. employers lose $1.8 trillion annually due to productivity issues. But recognizing, and making seemingly small changes such as the following can add up to major time savers.

1. Summer kills productivity: Even if the summer is your favorite season, your boss might think otherwise. It turns out that workplace productivity decreases by 20 percent and distractions increase by 45 percent during the summer. It seems that workplaces have more to worry about in the summer than just vacation time.
2. Noisy co-workers: Everyone’s had one ”  a loud co-worker. Noisy people hurt productivity, with 61 percent of people agreeing  with that.  The worst part is trying to get your noisy work buddy to be quiet.
3. Stress makes it worse: Feeling the stress from a job can be detrimental to one’s health and well-being. If that wasn’t bad enough, 51 percent of workers say that stress causes people to be less productive.
4. Social media is cutting into work time dramatically: With no surprise, employees going onto their social media pages during work wastes valuable time. 31 percent of workers admit to wasting an hour a day on social media, with Facebook being the biggest social media time waster.
5. Even weather cuts into productivity: You can’t really blame mother nature, but it is a workplace productivity factor. And it’s not bad weather, but rather good sunny weather that limits productivity. That means your boss is probably hoping for rain.
6. Meetings are a big time-thief: Since nearly half of workers consider some meetings to be a big problem against productivity, be proactive in ensuring that their workers are engaged during meetings by using technology and meetings should be limited in general.
7. Managing time for emails and phone calls: Employees should be focused on improving productivity, especially with regards to technology. One recommendation is to turn off phone notifications and to only check emails at certain times of the day.
8. Productivity solutions beyond the office: In addition to the numerous benefits of telecommuting, it turns out that productivity might also be one. People who work from home are happier and it turns out more productive. Is this is something your company could try to see if it works for you?