The average large US business loses $47 million in productivity each year as a direct result of inefficient knowledge sharing.

According to the Panopto Workplace Knowledge and Productivity Report, U.S. knowledge workers waste 5.3 hours every week either waiting for vital information from their colleagues or working to recreate existing institutional knowledge. That wasted time translates into delayed projects, missed opportunities, frustration among employees, and significant impact on the bottom line.

employee expertise is fleeting when it's only shared through conversation. To remain competitive, businesses must provide the tools to preserve institutional knowledge and instill a culture of teaching among employees.

Annual productivity loss was calculated as the product of a firm's Number of Employees x Average Hourly Wage x Weekly Hours Spent Inefficiently x Weeks per Year x Utilization Assessment Rate x Adoption Assessment Rate.

Onboarding inefficiency costs were calculated as the product of Number of Employees x Annual Employee Turnover x Average Hourly Wage x Months to Proficiency in a New Job x Weekly Hours Spent Inefficiently x Utilization Assessment Rate x Adoption Assessment Rate.

When combined with other averages from the research, this yielded an average cost of $42.5 million in annual productivity loss and an average cost of $4.5 million in inefficient onboarding, totaling $47 million in annual costs.

A business with 3,000 employees loses $8 million annually, a 10,000-employee business loses $26.5 million annually, and a 50,000-employee business loses $132.7 million annually.