Two new surveys reveal that while workers report spending an average of 36 minutes per day—or about three hours a week—attending to personal tasks during the workday, executives believe the actual number is much higher. The surveys were conducted by staffing firm OfficeTeam.
One of the surveys asked 559 office workers how much time they think they spend attending to personal tasks during work hours. The mean response was 36 minutes.
Join us this fall in San Francisco for the California Employment Law Update conference, a 3-day event that will teach you everything you need to know about new laws and regulations, and your compliance obligations, for the year ahead—it’s one-stop shopping at its best.
In the other survey, 150 senior executives were polled as to how much time they think their average employee spends attending to personal tasks during work hours. That mean response? 43 minutes.
Interestingly, responses in the worker survey varied widely by gender and age. In the survey, women said they take an average of 29 minutes daily to attend to personal tasks during office hours, while men admitted to spending 44 minutes on such tasks at work. Survey respondents ages 18 to 34 estimated they spent an average of 45 minutes per workday on personal pursuits, compared to an average of 32 minutes for workers aged 35 to 64, and 17 minutes for workers age 65 or older.