The cost of five minutes…
I had a scheduled call the other day to which I dialed in and they were not available. “Call back in five minutes” was the direction. These things happen – I understand.
The five minutes I had before calling back wasn’t productive. I needed to stay focused on time, as five minutes isn’t quite long enough to start and finish something.
We all have valid reasons, yet these can turn into habitual tardiness.
A typical scenario – a meeting starts, a few announcements and then someone wanders in, not only disrupting the others, but now the chair of the meeting has to decide if the information needs repeating– or should they forge ahead.
Five minutes once a day isn’t much, but if this happens a few times in a day, my guess is that in a week the loss could be in the hours. If we multiply this by each staff member, how much time is lateness costing us?
Consider this the next time you are only five minutes late.