Nearly 50% of employees do their Christmas shopping whilst at work, almost 72 minutes of company time

As the Christmas shopping rush starts an online voucher code website looked into when and where people do their Christmas shopping, they were particularly interested in looking at shopping  during working hours. 48% of employees in the UK admitted to Christmas shopping on work time, spending on average 72 minutes doing so.

There is a lot of planning and organisation that goes into Christmas, with time in short supply to do these tasks. With experts predicting more shopping will happen online this month than ever before an online voucher code website investigated if people do their Christmas shopping at work whilst on company time.

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www.myvouchercodes.co.uk surveyed 2157 men and women in the UK aged over 18 who  were in full time employment (not self-employed) asking: “Have you ever shopped for Christmas presents whilst at work during work time?” They found that 48% of respondents admitted they had, whilst 2% would prefer not to say and 50% stated they never had.

The results also showed that men were more likely to spend work time shopping for Christmas presents than women, with 50% admitting to doing their Christmas shopping when they should have been working.

As many companies opt for policies which restrict which sites can be viewed online at work, My Voucher Codes investigated further to see what device people were using to shop on in work. They asked those who had answered yes to the first question: “Did you shop via your computer or mobile device?” They discovered 59% of people used mobile devices such as their phone or tablet, whilst 38% used their work computer.

To work out how much time employees spent online shopping for Christmas on work time they asked: “On average per shopping session how long did you spend shopping for Christmas presents?”

The majority of respondents (28%) only spend around 20 minutes Christmas shopping in work time, however 17% admitted to spending nearly 2hrs shopping and 10% admitted to spend over 3hrs shopping for Christmas presents. This meant the average the amount of time workers spent Christmas shopping online during work time was 73 minutes.

Mark Pearson said:

“At Christmas there doesn’t seem to be enough time to do everything we need, from planning and shopping to visiting friends and family, so it’s no surprise that people try and sneak some time at work to reduce some of the stress of the festive period. Taking into consideration being able to do shopping away from a spouse, you may need to shop for them at work, however as a business owner I would suggest using the lunch break for that!”

He added:

“Obviously for businesses, shopping during work hours can be a concern. Some will have taken matters into their own hands and ban access to many unessential websites including retail, but combatting access on mobile devices is harder. This may lead employers to be even more vigilant, checking that their employees aren’t on their mobiles or tablets, however perhaps it is up to the employee to be better organised and perhaps taking time off work with their holiday allowance to do these tasks.”