Improving employee productivity is a constant struggle. Social media and mobile devices have increased employee distractions and led to a new epidemic in the workplace.

Cyberslacking. This is not a word common to many people, but it’s a workplace condition that has become a problem of epidemic measures.

According to a Harris Poll for CareerBuilder, it was reported that twenty-four percent of workers admitted they spend at least an hour a day on personal email, texts, and personal calls. More than half of the employers surveyed said the biggest distraction at work comes from employees using their cell phones and 44 percent saying the same about the Internet. Whatever the gains from the application of new technology, cyberslacking is eroding American productivity from the inside out. It is being chewed up by the use and abuse of Internet access to social media and apps for non-work purposes.

This week host Meghan M. Biro was joined by best-selling author William Keiper to discuss how to combat this epidemic.

Here are a few key points that William shared:

• The average smartphone user in the US is reaching for their phone 1500 times a week
• The impact of cyberslacking is, just in the U.S, hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity
• When people are hyperconnected they become disengaged

Did you miss the show? You can listen to the #WorkTrends podcast on our BlogTalk Radio channel here:  http://bit.ly/2fHeulv

You can also check out the highlights of the conversation from our Storify here:

Didn’t make it to this week’s #WorkTrends show? Don’t worry, you can tune in and participate in the podcast and chat with us every Wednesday from 1-2pm ET (10-11am PT). Next week the #WorkTrends community will be dark in honor of Thanksgiving. We will be back live on Nov 30 and I will be joined by Rachael Mann to discuss the importance of connecting business and academia to support STEM.

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Photo Credit: Andriy Deniskin Flickr via Compfight cc