Marketers are spending large portions of the work day on things other than what they were hired to do; stating that only 38% of their day was spent on their primary job duties. This was found in survey by Workfront, the leading provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solutions.

It also revealed that the top three things that got in the way of work included excessive emails (48%), excessive oversight (51%), and wasteful meetings (62%). Not surprisingly, over a quarter of marketers (29%) stated their feelings about attending meetings could be best described with a negative emoji.

“Meetings and email are a necessary part of today’s workplace. Unfortunately, they are often misused; decreasing, rather than increasing, productivity,” said Joe Staples, chief marketing officer at Workfront.

“The good news is there are better ways to manage work. By implementing a solution like Workfront, marketers are able to collaborate in the context of work, and gain complete visibility into the work that is being done. This eliminates the need for unnecessary status meetings, and lengthy email threads and gives teams time back to be more productive. It’s really about providing the tools that allow businesses to focus on the right work, create their best work, and deliver that work faster than ever before.”

While work isn’t always rainbows and butterflies, the survey revealed several bright spots, primarily around people’s work environments and co-workers.

80% of marketers stated they love their jobs and are usually happy to be there (84%). They also expressed that dealing with their co-workers makes them feel happy (60%) and that at least one person at work has their back (91%). Approval ratings were also high for bosses with respondents stating that they felt that their boss listened to them (88%), and they felt empowered at work (78%).

Some other interesting findings from the 2016 Marketing State of Work Report include:

• Do not disturb —29% of marketers said uninterrupted blocks of time would help them be more productive at work, and more/better qualified people and resources (19%), more accountability from stakeholders/decision makers (18%).
• Ding-dong the hour-long lunch is dead — 54% of marketers take 30 minutes or less for lunch, with 30% stating they take less than 15 minutes. The top two reasons given for working through lunch were, “I prefer to work through my lunch” (46%) and, “I am too busy for a lunch” (46%).

See: Communication Issues: Leading Cause for Interdepartmental Conflict among Marketers

• Watch out — work changes ahead — 26% of marketers agree that email will no longer be the main mode of communication in five years, with over half (53%) saying that the majority of workers will work remotely in the coming years.
• Overtime on the rise — 45.9 hours is the typical workweek for marketers, compared to their non-marketing counterparts who work an average of 45.1 hours per week. When asked how they feel about working after hours or on weekends, 73% of workers said it made them feel negatively (sad face, angry face or poop emoji).

The vast majority of marketers consider themselves productive at work—more productive, in fact, than their peers and managers. This productivity varies by hour—peaking for many in the morning and then taking a dip during the early afternoon. But it can also be stymied by practices that are all too common in the marketing departments, like wasteful meetings, too many emails, and a glut of oversight.

Inter-team conflict is more pervasive than ever, having grown by 14 percentage points just in the last two years. Interestingly, the most common sources of this conflict—under-communication, clashing priorities, and misunderstandings about urgency— have not changed. Neither have its devastating effects. Productivity remains the biggest casualty of inter-team conflict.

Also read: A Sneak Peek into the Digital Habits of Employees in Asia Pacific

Image credit: dmnews.com