New Research: Here’s How to Transcend the Top 4 Productivity Obstacles Every Accounting Firm Faces

The newest research from top technology integration firm Mavenlink shares fascinating information on productivity (as well as the costs we face when productivity lapses). We covered the results in our recent webinar on the Top 4 Productivity Obstacles – you can see it in full and download the slide presentation here.

As we jump into the top productivity wasters, let’s first examine what it’s really costing us for the time lost. For example, did you know the average worker can’t focus on a task for more than 11 minutes at a time? This is according to research from the New York Times. The cost of distraction is even worse: The Wall Street Journal reports it takes approximately 25 minutes to fully refocus on the original task after a disruption. 

So… if you are a firm of 20 people and each of them faces, as a conservative estimate, 3 disruptions a day … that’s 75 minutes per person per day (in addition to the time they spend getting in and out of applications, etc.). If those team members are billable at $150 an hour, that’s $3,750 per day… $18,750 per week … $975,000 per year! And all of this is on top of the 25 hours of work a day not completed. 

As we consider the cost of even a conservative amount of disruption, then, what are the four biggest productivity obstacles we are facing today? According to Mavenlink, they are: 

1.     Downtime and lag time of underutilized resources. In a word: we need workflow! 

2.     Over-connectivity and alerts-related distractions. Texts, emails, IMs, system alerts all contribute to this. 

3.     Time lost switching between applications. These are the remaining issues that result from a “hairball infrastructure” vs. a unified workspace.

4.     Too much multitasking across teams overwhelms team members. This is unfortunately pervasive. fact, a survey by Udemy notes that 70% of employees feel distracted at work. 

How do we resolve these problems? Let’s unpack them one at a time: 

1.     Downtime and lag time due to underutilized resources. This productivity waster illustrates the crying need for workflow management. When employees have a clear picture of tasks to be accomplished and milestones to meet, they accomplish more and produce more revenue. 

Motivated employees will try to use their time well even if the workflow isn’t visible, but they will be unfocused in the highest and most billable use of the time. But when managers (and clients) have better visibility, they accomplish more. It’s a kind of subconscious gamification to be on top of everything they can see. 

Consider automation that goes beyond simple point a to b compatibility and connection to incorporate the following functions we’ve talked about in our prior webinar on Intelligent Audit: 

• Provide teams a way to track established procedures by audit or function type,
• Provide inherent helps to train new members,
• Establish a consistent flow and response process so clients know what to expect,
• Track completed steps for continual status and visibility at all levels.

 2.     Over-connectivity and alerts related distractions. Research from Udemy says 70 percent of workers feel distracted at work (and the sum moves to 74% for those who are Millennial and Gen Z). These distractions include app notifications,
office chatter, emails, text and IM pings and more.

According to WaterLogic, the average person checks his or her phone up to 80 times every day. The average desk worker, in fact, spends more than two hours checking email approximately 50 times during work hours and checks instant messaging screens as many as 77 times. Mashable reports these distractions cost U.S. businesses as much as $650 billion a year!  

Answers to this would be to centralize types of communications to just 1-2 levels of alert and train everyone to turn off all of the other phones and alarms. Let communications through your workflow system be clear and designated so that everything isn’t an equally prioritized “emergency.” Train clients and co-workers on the best way to get your attention for the level of response they will need. 

3.     Time lost switching between applications.

This is the function, according to Mavenlink, that costs employees as much as an hour a day! Of all productivity helps available, the integration of apps into a unified workspace is a giant step forward. 

Consider a unified workspace that puts the highest priorities on the functions where you have the highest needs. Then find (or build) a solution that comes as close as possible to covering the areas where your highest needs intersect, as follows: (source, AccountingWEB Realities of Practice Management, July 2020).  As customers can attest, the ideal system, in most cases, will integrate best in class applications for the functions you need most, but will also allow for integration of accustomed apps your clients may require or continue to prefer. 

Make a conscious effort to note the number of SaaS applications you have, both officially and unofficially, within your practice. We have a software cost calculator that can help you arrive at the full total. The number (and cost) may really surprise you. But in any case, that knowledge will help you to prune down to the important pieces of software you really need as well as to optimize the productivity of your practice. 

4.     Multitasking overwhelms team members. In fact, there is evidence to suggest there is actually no such thing as effective multitasking. We need clear task assignments and priorities to reach our highest productivity and most important achievements. 

From Mavenlink, consider this: much like app switching and constant alerts, moving between multiple tasks and balancing various goals interchangeably throughout the day can cause major distractions, slow down project pace, and lead to unfocused work efforts. According to a study by TalentSmart, multitasking temporarily drops a person’s IQ by 15 points, which causes the multitasking individual’s cognitive capacity to become equal to an eight-year-old child. 

For time management, we need to 

• Not under-assess the level of urgency,
• Determine the right priority level and assess the right project value, while also assessing the needed effort, and  
• Determine and account for interdependencies with other team members. 

In summary, then, we need to ensure the technology and process improvements we make are specifically designed to overcome all of the four time-waste and productivity barriers: 

• Overcome downtime and lag time
• Address overconnectivity and distractions
• Reduce time-loss from switching between apps
• Manage multi-task overload across teams.

Our teams and our customers will thank us.