London Office Clearance: Declutter To Improve Productivity

 Is office clutter costing you money?

Office Products company Brother estimates that disorganisation costs businesses a staggering $177 billion annually in lost productivity.

When employees are working in a messy environment they not only waste valuable time looking for lost papers and computer files but that wasted time leads to stress, frustration, and unhappiness, resulting in an even bigger indirect loss of productivity. Add to this the cost of printing additional copies of documents (unbelievably, the average office has 19 copies of each created document!) and ordering more office supplies to replace lost items and you start to see how the numbers stack up.

Here are some eye-popping stats from the Brother survey:

• 38 working hours (or close to one work week) per person each year are lost as a result of looking for misplaced items in the office at a cost of $89 billion.
• 66% of office workers spend up to 30 minutes of time during a typical work week looking for things they have misplaced around their office.
• 46% of office workers have lost one of the following items in the past year (a file folder, mobile phone, calculator, flash or memory drive, a briefcase, suitcase, or luggage, lap top computer, or a PDA)
• Close to four in 10 (37%) of office workers have gone into a work meeting feeling unprepared
• Office supplies are on the top of office workers’ list of items lost in the last year with close to three in 10 (28%) have lost a file folder in the past year.
• 87% of office workers say when their workspace is disorganized they feel they are less productive than when their workspace is organized
• 86% agree that having a disorganized workspace is unprofessional
• 30% of office workers have lost out on getting reimbursed for a business or travel expense because they misplaced or lost a receipt.

Source: The Costs Associated With Disorganization, Brother International Corporation 2010

It costs $25,000 to fill a four-drawer filing cabinet and $2,100 per year to maintain it: the true cost of clutter. But what about the psychological impact? When surveyed, office workers said clutter affected them in the following ways:

• 77 percent – Productivity
• 65 percent – State of mind
• 53 percent – Motivation
• 40 percent – Happiness
• 38 percent – Professional image
• 20 percent – Relationships

Source: OfficeMax 2011 survey

According to the National Association of Professional Organizations, paper clutter is the biggest problem for most businesses. The average person wastes 4.3 hours per week searching for papers while the average executive loses 1 hour of productivity per day searching for missing information. And, according to the Small Business Administration, the biggest burden for small business is the inability to properly service customers, increase sales and improve the bottom line because of mishandled paperwork.

Whether you are a big corporation, a small business or working from a home office un-cluttering and getting organised offers significant benefits:

• increase productivity and bottom line profits
• keep key information secure
• reduce workplace stress and anxiety
• contribute to a safer office environment
• save time and improve effectiveness.

Top Tips for Getting Organised

1. Create a clean desk or clean workspace policy.
2. Designate one hour per week for getting organised and make it part of your regular office routine. Consider handing out prizes for the best organised desk or work area.
3. Hold an annual or semi-annual office clean-out day in which all employees participate. You could even introduce an element of fun and hand out special T shirts and prizes for the occasion!
4. Draw up a document retention policy and archive all your documents in boxes with clear destroy-by dates for disposal when you have your annual clean-out.

And if you need even more inspiration check out this slideshow from Forbes: Ten Tricks To Declutter Your Office

Remember, Away With It provide a handy same-day office clearance service so why not talk to us next time you’re planning and office clean-out day?