According to Salary.com and an America Online Survey, American’s waste more than 2 hours a day at work. That adds up costing companies $759 billion a year!!

And what exactly are these employees doing with their time?? You guessed it….surfing the web….More than 10,000 employees who responded indicated that the number one way they waste time at work is personal internet use (checking emails, IM, online polls, games, message boards and chat rooms…just to name a few). Personal internet use was cited by 44.7% of respondents as their primary time-wasting activity.

Other top-time wasting activities included:

Socializing with co-workers 23.4%
Conducting personal business 6.8%
Spacing Out 3.9%

Hopefully, you business is not in the following states. Below are the top 5 Time-Wasting States:

Missouri 3.2 hrs/day
Indiana 2.8 hrs/day
Kentucky 2.8 hrs/day
Wisconsin 2.8 hrs/day
Nevada 2.7 hrs/day

It is interesting to note that the Internet is the number one reason people slack off. It shows you just how integrated it has become to our personal and professional lives. Samara Jaffe, America Online, notes that “Today, there are so many useful tools and Websites on the Internet that have enabled people to become more efficient with accomplishing multiple tasks in a shorter period of time.

But, at what cost to the employer? Are workers really expected to work non-stop eight hours a day? According to a survey of corporate HR Managers, employers actually expect the average employee to waste about an hour a day…in addition to the worker’s lunch hour. A certain amount of “slacking-off” is built in to the salary structure. The figures above show that on average, workers are wasting a little more than twice what their employers expect.

So you too are probably guilty of wasting time at work, and since you are reading this between 9am & 5pm you probably are! It just may be comforting to know that you are not alone!! So I’m off to do some shoe shopping at shoes.com…talk to you later!