UK workers spend more time at work, but not for work itself…

According to the OfficeMetrics study, "women work hard, but not quite as hard as men". Thus, the research found, women were starting their working day 18 minutes earlier than they had been six months earlier. But women were apparently only 94% as productive as men in July, compared to 87% as productive, back in November.

In general, the study shows, UK office workers were tending to spend more time in the office, as they seek to impress their bosses and stave off the threat of redundancy. In July 2009, UK workers were spending on average 15 minutes longer at their work place than they were nine months ago, but the amount of time spent on work based activities had reduced by 3%, the research company claims. 

So, the researches concluded, many of those who seem to be spending longer at work are in fact spending more time on personal browsing and social networking sites. That’s why it’s necessary to get software to keep better tabs on what staff is up to.

As Jon Mulligan, OfficeMetrics MD considers, it may be women might actually be more productive than men during the time they're actually applying themselves to their jobs. “Women may be spending less time on work activities but producing better results and therefore managers must take multiple factors in to account when they are assessing employee performance.”