Study reveals what workers do during the day

Workers spend 46 minutes everyday dealing with office equipment problems and wasting office supplies by printing out needless documents, a new study has revealed.

Computer and hi-tech office equipment manufacturer Microsoft undertook the study ahead of the launch of Vista, the company’s latest operating system.

As well as spending nearly an hour printing out documents and fiddling with broken printers, faxes, laminators, guillotines and other office machines, workers spent 54 minutes on the internet, 35 minutes chatting, 14 minutes in the toilet and 17 minutes making tea and coffee.

Referring to the results of the study, work expert Professor Cary Cooper, who carried out the study, said: “With so many distractions in the modern office it is not surprising that our minds wander.”

However, it has also been revealed that many employees now no longer work the traditional nine to five office hours, with many working from 08:30 GMT through to 18:00 GMT.

But, Professor Cooper has claimed that this is not as we are working more but down to presenteeism and a fear of losing our jobs.

“Some of these long hours are down to what I call presenteeism, where workers feel they have to put in long hours because of job insecurity.

“Jobs are no longer for life and people feel they have to stay at their desks for longer to stay in work.”

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