16.2 per cent employees spend over 4 hours checking e-mails: Study

A recent study by Hiver— a software as a service (SaaS) collaboration tool that improves visibility and exchange of information through shared inboxes— reveals some alarming figures regarding the amount of time spent by employees on checking their e-mails.

Apparently, almost 50 per cent of the employees surveyed admitted to spending a minimum of an hour daily on checking e-mails. In fact, 16.2 per cent of the employees surveyed spend over four hours every day checking their inboxes.

Over 61 per cent of working professionals in the 25–32 age range actually open their e-mails each time they receive a new notification. About 33 per cent of the employees check their e-mails every few hours

The survey aimed to study how effectively employees from various organisations consume e-mails. About 80 per cent of the respondents were employed at startups while 20 per cent were employed with corporates. The survey covered 450 respondents in India.

Surprisingly, a significant number of respondents — 40 per cent — chose not to clean their inboxes. However, 60 per cent felt the need to clear their inboxes repeatedly.

While 32 per cent of the respondents employed e-mail-based filters to clean the inbox, about 37 per cent wished to move the important events to the calendar. About 35 per cent put their tasks in a to-do list, exhibiting effective use of the mailbox.

Seventy-six per cent of the respondents admit to reading over 40 per cent of the mails they receive, while 55 per cent of the respondents took action on every e-mail, the moment it arrived. Considering the fact that about 32.4 per cent of the respondents received over 50 e-mails in a day, it is clear that employees spend a significant amount of their working hours only checking mails. With almost 50 per cent of those surveyed revealing that they received the maximum mails from within their organisation itself, it appears that the inboxes of the employees are cluttered with internal mails.

However, interestingly, decluttering their inboxes makes employees feel quite productive, reveals the study, even if they don’t actually add any concrete value to the organisation.