SMEs work a 15 month year
Research carried out for the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) has revealed that leaders of SMEs with between 10–249 staff work the equivalent of an extra three months in a year based on a 40 hour working week.
This equates to an extra 10 hours a week on average and can increase to 13.4 hours a week for leaders of larger small to medium enterprises (SMEs) with 100 to 249 employees.
According to the survey, conducted by Populus, much of this time is spent on back office tasks. SMEs spend over an hour a week handling insurance (73 minutes), taking longer than dealing with office supplies (37 minutes) and managing IT (62 minutes). From finding and setting up insurance to handling claims, British SMEs are losing out on valuable time that could be spent on business development, team building or investing in skills.
HR and marketing take up most time with SMEs spending on average 90 minutes a week on marketing and 77 minutes a week on HR related activities.
Commenting on the research Steve White, Chief Executive of BIBA said, ‘It is concerning to think that SMEs work an extra quarter a year, effectively doing a full year’s work by October. Much of this time is spent on tasks that have nothing to do with their core business goals. Insurance is the third most time consuming back office task, taking up more time than IT, SMEs could benefit from the support of an insurance broker to save them precious time to get on with growing their business.
‘An insurance broker will have access to a wide choice of products, can give advice, represent businesses during claims and provide risk management advice relieving the burden on the SME.’
