Office workers productive for less than three hours a day

British office workers spend just 2 hours and 53 minutes a day productively, often preferring to spend their time on social media, trawling news websites and chatting with colleagues, alarming new research has found.

The study by www.vouchercloud.com revealed that time spent in the office does not necessarily translate to productivity, with 79% of the survey’s 1,989 participants admitting that they were not productive throughout the day. Just a 21% believed that they were; and on average respondents believed that they did a meagre 2 hours and 53 minutes of actual work.

The survey respondents, who were all over 18 and full-time office workers, revealed that the most common procrastination activity is social media, with 47% admitting that they spent their time checking their accounts. On average, this amounted to 44 minutes of the working day.

Other popular activities included reading news websites (45%) and discussing out of work activities with colleagues (38%), and almost one in five workers admitted to spending time searching for new jobs (19%).

Eating snacks and making hot beverages are also a significant time drain, with an average of 25 minutes of an 8 hours shift spent on making or consuming tea and nibbles. 28% of respondents smoked at work, with sneaky cigarette breaks accounting for 23 minutes time away from the desk a day.

So, should companies be blocking social media sites and policing the snack bar? Most of the survey participants believed that these breaks were necessary, with only 35% admitting that they could get through the day without distractions. Of those who couldn’t, 54% explained that distractions made the working day ‘more bearable’, and felt their productivity for the rest of the working day ‘benefited from the intermittent breaks’.

Vouchercloud Spokesman Matthew Wood says: “I think the majority of us are guilty of procrastination to some extent or other, but to the point that less than 3 hours a day is spent actually working? That’s a remarkable figure! No one likes a draconian office, but maybe some employers should be thinking about toughening up the rules based on this

“People might be able to justify this with the fact that they still get their necessary work done. But 3 hours’ work a day means a 3 day week might be in order! Or perhaps we’ll be working 9-12 from now on? It’s got quite a nice ring to it. However I’m sure if that was the case, and the week was condensed, the natural time waster in all of us would still find a way to come to the fore.”

‘What are you guilty of spending time doing during the working day rather than working productively?’

1.       Checking social media – 47%

2.       Reading news websites – 45%

3.       Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 38%

4.       Making hot drinks – 31%

5.       Smoking breaks – 28%

6.       Text/instant messaging – 27%

7.       Eating snacks – 25%

8.       Making food in office – 24%

9.       Making calls to partner/ friends- 24%

10.   Searching for new jobs – 19%

Average time spent on each distraction:

1.       Checking social media – 44 minutes (spent doing this during working day)

2.       Reading news websites – 1 hour 5 minutes

3.       Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 40 minutes

4.       Making hot drinks – 17 minutes

5.       Smoking breaks – 23 minutes

6.       Text/instant messaging – 14 minutes

7.       Eating snacks – 8 minutes

8.       Making food in office– 7 minutes

9.       Making calls to partner/ friends – 18 minutes

10.   Searching for new jobs- 26 minutes