The Cost of Disorganisation Stateside

The average American worker spends 76 hours a year looking for items, files and information lost at work because of disorganisation. Or so says a poll commissioned by Brother International Corp.

This equates to a cost to US businesses of $177.8 billion a year.

The amount of the loss due to disorganization “may drastically impact the bottom line for large companies and small businesses alike,” a Brother spokesperson said.

“As we have seen now more than ever, companies are trying to find unique ways of saving money and becoming more efficient. Usually companies don’t think of disorganization in terms of dollars wasted.”

Office supplies are the most commonly mislaid items. Thirty percent say they’ve lost a file / folder in the past year, 26 percent a mobile phone, 26 percent a calculator, and 26 percent a flash or memory drive.

Not surprisingly, the survey found that most office workers (87%) feel less productive when their workspace is disorganised. Eighty percent agreed that a disorganised worker harms the productivity of the whole office.