Engineers Rising

Cost of Poor Communication Calculator

Estimate what time lost to unclear communication costs, per person and across your team. Enter your own numbers.

Your Inputs

Employee salary (per year) Use a typical gross salary for your team

Number of employees Enter 1 for one person, or your team size

Estimated time lost to poor communication Suggested minimum: 6% or about 30 min per day^*

*Based on Josh Bernoff's 2016 survey of businesspeople, published in Harvard Business Review ("Bad Writing Is Destroying Your Company's Productivity"). The 6% of wages estimate appears in his related article, "Bad Writing Costs Businesses Billions" (2016). Likely conservative for teams that read dense technical material.

Overhead multiplier Fully loaded cost to the business (salary plus overhead). Varies by industry: tech ~1.5 to 2.5, professional services and consulting ~2 to 3, AEC ~2.75

Hours worked per week Default 40

Workdays per week Default 5

Weeks off per year Holidays, vacation, and sick days. Default 4

Time Lost

per day

per week

per year

The Cost

Cost to the individual, per year

Cost to the business, per person per year

Total cost to the business, per year

hours worked = (52.18 − weeks off) × hours per week
hours lost = hours worked × percent lost
cost to individual = (salary ÷ hours worked) × hours lost
cost to business = cost to individual × overhead multiplier
team total = cost to business × number of employees

Compare to a Program (optional)

One-time program fee Leave blank to skip

This is an estimate, not a guarantee. A common research benchmark for time lost to poor communication is about 6 percent of the workday; for teams that read and write dense technical material, the real figure is often higher. Adjust any input to reflect your own team. The overhead multiplier converts salary into the fully loaded cost an employer actually carries.