Singapore office workers are the least productive according to Global Productivity Study

·         Singapore office workers only spend 60 percent
(vs. global average of 72 percent) of their time on primary duties

·         They spend 380 hours a year (equivalent to
47.5 work days or two months of the working year) completing administrative or
repetitive tasks

·         The loss of productivity is costing the
Singapore service industry more than S$36.5bn annually

Singapore, 13
July 2017 – Unit4, world leader in enterprise systems for service
organizations, announces the findings of an independent study on global
productivity which found that office workers in Singapore are the least
productive in terms of time spent on their primary job
function.

According to the
study, Singapore workers spend only 60 percent (vs. global average of 72
percent) of their time on primary tasks and roughly 380 hours a year
(equivalent to 47.5 work days or one-fifth of the working year) completing
administrative or repetitive tasks. On average, respondents aged 41 and above
estimate they spend significantly more time on their primary duties compared to
those aged 26-30.

The Global
Productivity Study was an online survey commissioned by Unit4 and conducted by
DJS Research in April / May 2017 with 1,505 office-based employees working in
the service industry in 11 countries, including Singapore.

Singapore office
workers identified the amount of time they spend on specific daily administrative
tasks that prevent them from focusing on their primary duties, which include
manually collating and entering data (30 percent), tracking their project
status (26 percent), handling invoices (20 percent) as well as submitting their
expenses and planning travels (11 percent).

“Left unchanged, this
productivity issue could be crippling for business, particularly services
organisations who rely on the strengths and output of their people.”  said
Stephan Sieber, CEO of Unit4.

The study showed that
the cost to the service industry in lost productivity due to excessive
administration is more than US$2.87 trillion annually[1] (S$6.95
trillion) across the 11 countries combined, including US$26.3 billion (S$36.5
billion) in Singapore.

When asked if they
would trust technology – such as a digital / virtual assistant or software
application – to manage repetitive tasks, a majority of Singaporean office
workers (83 percent) said they would. 72% felt they would see improved
productivity, and 69% felt it would improve their happiness. They are also
confident that this technology will be available soon, particularly younger
workers (even within a year). Importantly, in Singapore, 78% of workers agree
that technology to aid administration is important for their company to remain
competitive.

“The shifting of roles
and responsibilities that come from technological advancements will see more
people spending their time on value-added services to help a business
grow.  We believe that the future of work will be supported by the best
technology, enabling the best people to deliver more value to their customers
than their competitors,” said Sieber.

-ends-

Unit4 commissioned DJS
Research to understand the amount of time office workers spend on a range of
administrative or repetitive tasks, and their views on how adopting technology
could help them be more productive. The overarching research objective of this
study is to gain an understanding of how much time office workers spend
carrying out administrative tasks and the impact automation of these might
have.

Unit4 is a leading
provider of enterprise applications empowering people in service organizations.
Thousands of organizations from sectors including professional services,
education, public services, not-for-profit, real estate, wholesale, and
financial services benefit from Unit4 solutions. Unit4 is in business for
people.

For more information,
please visit the website at http://www.unit4.com/about/our-company, follow us on
Twitter @Unit4global, or visit
our LinkedIn page

 [1] Total hours spent on admin x people working in service industries as a percentage of total working population (OECD) x average hourly wage (World Bank).