Men are spending double the time on the web in work time compared to their female counterparts according to research released by law firm Peninsula.
The survey polled 1,542 employees across a wide spectrum of industries in the UK and found eBay is the biggest blight on productivity.
Male workers spend on average four hours a day checking the internet with their favourite sites being BBC Sport and eBay.
Female workers clock up an average of two hours a day. Their favourite website also tends to be eBay. More than 74% of those polled use work resources to bid for eBay items and do so on a regular basis.
Peter Done, managing director of Peninsula, said employers needed to crack down. “If bosses want to be flexible then that’s fine, allow their employees to spend time surfing the net in their employee’s time such as lunch breaks,” he said. “It really is time for employer’s to instigate clear rules and punishments for those that abuse the system.
“Employers need to start by introducing clear guidelines and implement these within employee contracts. It may also be prudent to introduce a monitoring system to look at how many hours employees spend on the internet.”
The survey asked:
Number of hours employees spend surfing the internet in work time:
- Men: 4 hours per day
- Women: 2 hours per day
Favourite websites to browse in work time:
Men:
- BBC Sport
- eBay
- Amazon
Women:
- eBay
- Amazon
- BBC Health
Have you ever used work resources to bid on eBay?
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Yes 74%
No 26%
