WASHINGTON — Nobody likes to admit slacking off at work, but a recent survey by Paychex, Inc. reveals who does it, and why.
The payroll and human resources firm, found the industries in which workers waste the most time at work by surveying 2,000 full-time employees in various fields across the United States.
It found workers in construction the least likely to squander even an hour during the workday. On the other hand, people in the utilities, telecommunications and government industries were most likely to waste three or more hours each day.
The study found that as the education level of workers increased, their penchant for staying on task decreased. A greater percentage of high school-educated workers wasted less than an hour each day than those who had professional degrees, 61 percent to 52 percent. About 10 percent of people with associate degrees admitted to wasting more than three or more hours per day.
Surfing the web, or ‘cyberloafing,’ was a big temptation for employees in states such as Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, the study found. That wasn’t the case for workers in Mountain-region states such as Colorado, Montana and Nevada, who spent the least time surfing the web at work.
There are ways to reduce wasted time, the survey found. The most common policy by employers was to install website blockers, a tactic used by over 31 percent of bosses.
As for those who worked the most hours and wasted the least time by generation, Baby Boomers were at the top and Millennials scraped the bottom of the list.
In terms of location, states such as Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota were home to the hardest workers, while the mid-Atlantic region has the least hardworking employees.
