Without colleagues nearby to gossip with or wasting time on a long commute, remote and hybrid workers must be a lot more productive, right? While that may be true for some, all of them aren’t using all of their time for work. And a new survey offers insights into what remote workers really do all day, besides actually working.
According to the SurveyMonkey poll of more than 3-thousand full-time employees:
- Remote workers are flexible with their tech, as 76% use their personal devices for work-related tasks and 39% do personal activities on work devices.
- Nearly half (46%) admit to multitasking during a work call or doing household chores, like laundry or unloading the dishwasher, during work hours.
- One in three (32%) reveal they’ve taken a “quiet vacation” - completing work while traveling without officially taking time off or telling their employer - at least once within the last year
- A third take advantage of the flexibility to run errands, including picking up dry cleaning or going to the grocery store.
- A few are even sleeping on the job, with one in five admitting to taking a nap during the work day.
- Some remote workers have worked from another location without telling anyone (17%) or watched TV or played video games on the clock.
- And 4% have even worked on another job while working remotely.
- During work calls, about a third have used the bathroom, 21% have scrolled social media and 14% did online shopping.
- And it’s not just low-level employees who are slacking. More than half of managers and 49% of execs say they multitask on work calls, while 20% have browsed social media during a video or conference call.
- But there are some downsides to working from home, as 35% say the thing they miss most about the office is connecting with coworkers and 19% say the communication with team members is better when working in person.
Source: USA Today