New research from the UK’s largest money saving brand has revealed that the average UK office worker is only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes out of the working day; with social media and trawling news websites labelled as the main distractions affecting employee productivity each working day.

It seems that the average office worker spends a considerable amount of time procrastinating during their working day, as less than 3 hours is actually spent working productively; according to the results of a study.

The study, conducted by www.vouchercloud.com, polled 1,989 UK office workers all aged over 18 as part of research into the online habits and productivity of workers across the nation. All respondents currently worked full-time in an office role.

Respondents were initially asked, ‘Do you consider yourself to be productive throughout the entire working day?’ to which the majority, 79% admitted that ‘no’ they weren’t. Just a fifth, 21%, believed that ‘yes’ they were productive throughout the day.

The study asked then asked respondents, ‘If you had to state a figure, how long do you think you spend productively working during work hours on a daily basis?’ The results of this revealed the average answer to be ‘2 hours and 53 minutes’ of actual productivity in the workplace across all respondents.

The study then looked at the activities done instead of work, asking, ‘What are you guilty of spending time doing during the working day rather than working productively?’ and asked respondents to select from a list of potential options, which revealed the following top 10 distractions. Respondents were allowed to select more than one option if more than one applied:

Checking social media – 47% Reading news websites – 45% Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 38% Making hot drinks – 31% Smoking breaks – 28% Text/instant messaging – 27% Eating snacks – 25% Making food in office – 24% Making calls to partner/ friends- 24% Searching for new jobs – 19%

In fact, making food and eating snacks took up more time than was expected – during an 8 hour working day, the average employee admitted to spending 25 minutes preparing and consuming snacks and beverages, with tea rounds (making hot drinks) taking up a lot of the total.

Respondents who admitted that they were guilty of ‘at work distractions’ were asked how long they believed they spent on each one during the course of a working day, which revealed the following averages when taken from all respondents:

Checking social media – 44 minutes (spent doing this during working day) Reading news websites – 1 hour 5 minutes Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 40 minutes Making hot drinks – 17 minutes Smoking breaks – 23 minutes Text/instant messaging – 14 minutes Eating snacks – 8 minutes Making food in office– 7 minutes Making calls to partner/ friends – 18 minutes Searching for new jobs- 26 minutes

Respondents were then asked, ‘Do you think that you could get through the working day without partaking in any distractions?’ to which only 35% admitted that ‘yes’ they could. The remaining 65% of respondents believed that ‘no’ they couldn’t. Of these, 54% explained that they made the working day ‘more bearable’, so felt their productivity for the rest of the working day ‘benefited from the intermittent breaks’.

Chris Johnson of vouchercloud made the following comment:

“The modern workplace has an awful lot to distract us with, especially with our phones at our desks and tea to be drank. The times that we revealed in the survey, however, are still a surprise – perhaps we’re letting ourselves get distracted far too easily, with our productivity being dented as a result.“Taking a break once in a while is by all means okay – in fact, many high profile business leaders recommend taking regular breaks in order to make you more productive. But, taking calls from your friend or partner and checking social media might be pushing your luck…”

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