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In research collected by the firm, Iontas reports that 24 percent of workers said that they spent 50 or more hours on the job each week, according to the New York-based Families and Work Institute in May 2001. That report also says that 22 percent of workers work six to seven days of the week and 25 percent said that they did not use holiday time which they were entitled to.
Moreover, according to a 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, Irish employees work an average of 40 hours per week while staff in the UK work around 43.6 hours. This compares to other European nations, such as Luxembourg, Finland and Italy where workers spend 39.7, 39.3 and 38.5 hours per week in the office respectively.
Finally, the company cites a survey undertaken by Essex University's Institute for Social Economic Research which says that more than one-third of employees in the UK feel overworked. That research said that in the UK, 36 percent of men and 40 percent of women would like to spend less time at work -- even if that meant less money.
"There are two main factors behind the reasons that lead to the feeling of being overworked, namely background distractions and technology," Iontas said in its research report. Distractions such as e-mail, instant messaging and Internet browsing are in part to blame for the inefficiencies that leave employees feeling overworked. Iontas submits that while e-mail browsing and instant messaging cost companies nothing in terms use of the technologies, "the cost of time, as opposed to a monetary cost, is often forgotten."
Pointing to IDC research which says that over 36 billion person-to-person e-mails will be sent daily by 2005, Iontas claims that the instant nature of e-mail as well as its constant use throughout the day can dramatically impact worker effectiveness. Time spent reading e-mails, replying to e-mails and returning to work needs to be caught up, and the only way to do this is through overtime, Iontas says.
"E-mail is a brilliant tool," said Iontas' chief executive officer Martin McCreesh. But he said that since users tend to constantly check mail throughout the day, the flow of work is interrupted, making it difficult to return to other tasks at hand. "If we batch process e-mail we are much more efficient," McCreesh said.
With regard to the Internet, which McCreesh describes as the "most common" distraction, Iontas cites no specific figures but does provide similar commentary to its analysis of e-mail. Time spent browsing, even for work purposes, can lead workers into other time-wasting tangents, spending valuable time that must be made up later.
The report also claimed that instant messaging is another area fraught with "excessive personal use". Iontas cites Jupiter Media Metrix, which estimated that the number of at-work instant messaging (IM) users in the US increased from 10 million in September 2000 to 13.4 million in September 2001. During the same period, the total number of minutes that work users spent on AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger more than doubled from 2.3 billion to 4.9 billion minutes.
Other potential time wasters, according to Iontas, are computer and system downtime and lack of knowledge on the part of users. Dimension Data says that 92 percent of respondents to its survey say they lost time in an average week because of computer problems, with 14 percent of British respondents claiming that they were losing three or more hours a week due to computer downtime, equating to a potential loss of STG37 billion in 2001.
However the company offers some solutions to these corporate ailments, chiefly personal enforcement of discipline and better time management. The company suggests that individuals assess their current position by keeping an honest record of their work habits and examine how time is spent.
Iontas offers two software applications, Agent Focus and PC Focus, that are designed to help employees and employers monitor how their time is spent.
Based in Donegal, Iontas employs 14 and to date has received EUR1.1 million in venture capital from Enterprise Ireland, Enterprise Equity Ltd. and private investors. More recently, the company set up a Boston office in November as it looks to the US to increase its sales. Iontas customers include Conduit Europe, BT Ignite and Stream International.
McCreesh says that over the next two years the company hopes to increase employment figures to around 100 and expects to seek second round funding this year to enhance its presence in the US, depending on market conditions.
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