How do business leaders spend their working days?
This was first published in Business Strategy Review, Volume 22, Issue 4 - 2011. Subscribe today to receive your quarterly copy delivered to your home or work place. http://bit.ly/BSR-subscribe
2. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 2
CEO time
60% of CEO time is taken up by meetings; CEOs
spend 25% of their time on phone calls and at public
events; only 15% of CEO time is spent working alone.
bnet.com
60% 15%25%
3. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 3
Work-related
56% of managers visit work-related websites during
their free time and 30% read work-related books.
Chartered Management Institute
56% 30%
4. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 4
Time with others
CEOs spend the majority of their time with other people
(83%). Of these, most are employees of the same firm,
but many are not. On average, CEOs spend 42% of
their time with insiders only, 25% with both insiders and
outsiders and 16% with outsiders alone.
hbs.edu
42%
INSIDERSONLY
0% 100%50%
25%
BOTHINSIDERS
ANDOUTSIDERS
0% 100%50%
16%
OUTSIDERS
ALONE
0% 100%50%
12
TIMESPENTWITHOTHERS
83%
5. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 5
Workouts
85% of CEOs say they exercise daily. 70% begin their
day with a workout of some kind while 15% exercise
between meetings or during a lunch hour.
Yahoo!Finance
70%
15%
6. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 6
Unpaid work
Managers spend an average of 2.5 hours a week
doing unpaid research in their own time.
randstad.co.uk
12
7. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 7
Lunch breaks
Executives take an average lunch break of
35 minutes, though they also work through lunch
three days a week.
keyorganization.com
12
8. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 8
Information searches
Managers spend up to two hours a day searching
for information; yet the same managers felt half the
information they found to be useless.
academic-journal.org
12
9. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 9
Industry breakdown
Across industries, managers spend 30% to 60% of their
time on administrative work and meetings and 10% to 50%
on non-managerial tasks (travelling, participating in training,
taking breaks, conducting special projects or undertaking
direct customer service or sales themselves). They spend
only 10% to 40% actually managing employees by, for
example, coaching them directly.
forbes.com
ADMINISTRATIVE WORK
NON -MANAGERIAL TASKS
MANAGING EMPLO YEES
30%
60%60%
10%
550%
10%
40%
10. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 10
Twitter
Just 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs have Twitter accounts.
Only 50% of the accounts are active.
personneltoday.com
550%
ACTIVEACCOUNTS
0% 100%50%
5%
11. BUSINESS STRATEGY REVIEW 11
Paperwork
On average, paperwork and related tasks consume
11.6 hours per week of a manager’s time, with senior
managers both spending more time on these tasks and
finding it more disruptive than middle managers.
getmoredone.com
12 12 12
12 12 12
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12. This was first published as part of the
‘What a day looks like’ special report,
Business Strategy Review
Volume 22 Issue 4 2011
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