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01 Sep 2017

Have your team been working lots of overtime lately? Are their weekends turning into 'workends' on a regular basis? If so, they're not alone. New research from membership organisation Boundless has found that 65% of full-time office employees do extra work at the weekend. If the extra hours aren't bad enough, because overtime isn't available for salaried roles, employees miss out on an average of £3,359 every year.

 

Additionally, of the 2,000 full-time office workers surveyed for the report, 82% said that they have worked at least one weekend during the last six months. For over a quarter, their work requirements nearly took up a full work day – between five and eight hours – of their Saturday (29%). Almost a quarter have had to work Sundays and one in ten worked over the entire weekend.

 

Unsurprisingly, many workers felt they weren't paid enough. To dig a little deeper, six in ten (60%) of public sector workers were disgruntled about wages, meanwhile this figure stood at 46% for private sector workers.
So, what gives? Almost a quarter (24%) said that while it wasn't explicitly expected, their boss wouldn't be happy come Monday morning if the work wasn't done. Yet, over half (53%) said that their boss did expect them to work weekends.

 

Staggeringly, 33% said that "Monday was a complete nightmare" if they didn't work at the weekend.

 

Overall, workers believe that it would take an extra half a person in order to do their whole job each week, which equals a rough average of 19.5 additional hours. Finally, while lots of us like to think the weekend starts early on a Friday, most people work an extra two hours on a Friday night, while 30% stay in the office for an additional three to six hours.

 

A good work-life balance is essential for employee happiness, as is providing a fair wage and offering ample time to unwind and forget about the office. However, if your organisation demands too much of employees and their spare time, you may risk overworking them – something that is sure to both scare away future candidates and ruin retention rates.

 

An attractive work culture is a key part of your employer branding. Why not contact Stopgap today to find out more?

 

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