It’s official: women waste less time at work than men
Nearly a half of British employees shop or read news online during work, a third spends time on social media, but generally women waste less time than men. A study by Safetica about employees’ online behaviour reveals loosening work ethics as British employees reveal their favourite distractions when it comes to wasting time.
The introduction of the internet into the work environment promised increased efficiency and higher work results, but people have counterbalanced this by doing all sorts of other things online. Safetica, the provider of employee monitoring software, commissioned a survey from TNS Omnibus, carried out among 670 employees.
Nearly a half of employees admit to spending time reading online news websites or shopping online, on sites like eBay, Amazon and brand stores. Over a third spend time on social media such as Twitter and Facebook at work and almost a quarter watch online videos on YouTube or listen to online radios. Other categories scored under ten per cent, and about a quarter employees do not have access to internet at work.
| What sort of websites that are not work-related do you access when at work, through a laptop/computer/smartphone? | Total |
| News websites | 43% |
| Online Shopping websites | 43% |
| Social media sites | 37% |
| Video and music websites | 22% |
| Gamers websites | 9% |
| Funny image sites | 8% |
| Adult content websites | 5% |
| Other | 4% |
| Do not have access to internet at work | 26% |
The demographic breakdown shows that younger males lead in bad habits in all categories, except online shopping and reading news, where older males are first. Females work with internet less, but then they do, they waste much less time online in all categories, except when it comes to shopping or social media, where they beat men by a few percentage points.
| What sort of websites that are not work-related do you access when at work, through a laptop/computer/smartphone? | Female | Male |
| News websites | 39% | 46% |
| Online shopping websites | 43% | 42% |
| Social media sites | 41% | 34% |
| Video and music sites | 18% | 25% |
| Gamer sites | 3% | 13% |
| Funny images sites | 5% | 11% |
| Adult content sites | 2% | 9% |
| Other | 3% | 4% |
| Do not have access to internet at work | 31% | 23% |