Employees waste time at work

Most employees are guilty of wasting time at work, whether they take a few minutes out to trawl Wikipedia in order to prove their colleague wrong about the ingredients found in haggis or remind themselves of all actors cast in the 80s film Lost Boys.

Less information-hungry employees may just simply stare through their computer screen as though it was a window into another world, where fairies and pixies tell each other jokes, and spreadsheets and emails disintegrate into tawny skies.

New research from online HR consultancy www.Reabur.com, however, suggests that the problem of time wasting is more serious than employers may have thought with some employees almost taking duvet days in their heads at work.

Of the the 2,913 employees surveyed, those from Liverpool were the must work shy. Two-fifths (42%) of respondents from the area admitted to wasting three hours or more each working day. A further 11% admitted that they waste between two and three hours. 

In second place, was Manchester where 34% of respondents admitted they waste three hours a day.

The study also found that 54% of all respondents predominantly waste time on social networking sites such as Facebook. A further 28% said they wasted time at work browsing online stores. Furthermore, a fifth (19%) said they chatted with other colleagues, while 6% said they spent their time day dreaming.

In contrast, employees from Bristol waste the least amount of time at work with only 0.5% claiming to waste three or more hours in an average working day.

Kirsty Burgess, co-managing director of Reabur.com, said: “Wasting time at work is probably something we are all guilty of, although wasting three hours is excessive. If a person is wasting this much time, perhaps they are no longer satisfied in their employment and they could consider searching for a more challenging role. If this is not the case, and they are just too easily distracted; a brief conversation with management should rectify the situation.”