British business is losing out on more than £50m a year due to the culture of slacking off on Friday afternoons, according to research by software company Employersafe.
The top three excuses for avoiding having to do any work on a Friday afternoon are long lunches that overrun, arranging a meeting out of the office but near the employee‘s house and arranging doctor‘s appointments. Those that remain in the office tend to be far less productive than normal as they wait for the weekend.
“Many businesses pretty much grind to a halt due to workers suffering from the ’Friday feeling‘,” said Pam Rogerson, head of personnel at Employersafe. “People tend to schedule business lunches on a Friday afternoon, which inevitably over-run and mean they can not return to the office.
“It is amazing how often these days you can send an email or make a phone call on a Friday and not get any response until Monday morning. Our evidence suggests that more and more workers are seeing Friday afternoon as an unofficial holiday,” she added.
“We have estimated that this is costing British business over £50m a year, which all goes to form part of the overall £13billion cost of workplace absenteeism.”
This is backed up by the findings of research by the AA, which revealed that the Friday afternoon rush hour commences around midday.
Employersafe suggests companies keep track of staff attendance using workplace absence software and take action against those who can be shown to regularly underperform on Friday afternoons.
