Time Allocation
• In September/October of 2012, small-business owners worked an average of 50 hours in the prior week. Forty-eight (48) percent of them worked between 50 and 69 hours. The week was typical according to 79 percent of small employer respondents with the remainder virtually split between those working unusually long hours (11%) and those working unusually short hours (10%).
• The number of hours worked appears unrelated to the major demographic factors examined, such as employee size-of-business, industry or years of ownership. The exception is personal age. Once an owner reaches 65, hours are reduced.
• Small-business owners spent two-thirds (67%) of their working hours at the firm’s primary business location (home, for a home-based business), 6 percent at home and 27 percent working neither in the firm’s primary location nor the home. The latter could include work at job sites, on sales calls, making deliveries, etc.
• Thirteen (13) percent spent one or more nights away from home last week on business.
• The two business activities or functions occupying the most time for the largest number of small employers was producing goods and services and customer relations or service.
• Nine percent spent the entire week performing one business activity. Another 56 percent spent at least 50 percent of their time on the one consuming the most time. While owners must be flexible and prepared to bounce from problem to problem, most focus their time on one or two activities in a single week. These data are at odds with the more traditional image of small employers hopping from activity to activity all day long.
• The most frequent number of activities performed in a week was two (28%). However, nearly as many small employers performed six (21%) activities, five (16%) or seven (11%).
• Thirty-five (35) percent thought that they were misallocating their time, that they should be spending more time on some business activities and less time on others. Of those who thought their time misallocated, 31 percent believed that they should be spending more time on selling or marketing and another 20 percent said they should spend more on planning and strategizing. Less consensus appeared over the activities on which they should be spending less time. Eighteen (18) percent identified producing goods and services, and another 17 percent identified finance as areas occupying too much of their time. Thirteen (13) percent who thought they should spend more time on at least one activity, volunteered that they are spending too little time in no area. In effect, this group thinks that it is not putting in enough hours overall!
• Small-business owners clearly prefer some business tasks to others. The most frequent favorite of 34 percent is customer service or relations. Customer care is followed by 25 percent best liking producing goods and services, such as a contractor actively participating in the construction of a house or a medical practitioner taking care of patients, and 14 percent preferring selling or marketing. The least liked business tasks focus on finance (37%) and employee-related matters (26%), from hiring/firing to training and benefits.
• Small-business owners begin developing a management hierarchy when they are still quite small, perhaps as a necessity to cover when they are not immediately present. Thus, 43 percent of those with fewer than 10 employees have at least one who has managerial or supervisory responsibilities as part of their job. That figure rises to 96 percent in enterprises employing 20 or more people. However, the number having one or more employees who are primarily managers or supervisors with few if any other responsibilities is considerably smaller (12%).
