The Ideal Working Week

Workthere Research - May 2019

workthere.com

The Ideal Working Week

Our key findings are:

• Having access to flexible working is paramount to workers. Only 3% of employees who have access to flexible working think that it does not benefit them in any way. The most frequently cited reasons for the benefits of flexible working are that it helps with commuting times, productivity and childcare arrangements.

• Employers appear to appreciate the importance of offering flexible working in retaining and attracting talent. 71% of our respondents have access to flexible working. Workers in serviced offices are more likely to be offered flexible working than workers in traditional offices.

• The ideal work week would be 32 hours, which is six hours shorter than the average working week of 38 hours. The most favoured working days are from Monday to Thursday. However, weekend work is not entirely unwelcome, with our respondents preferring to make up their working hours with an average of one hour and 48 minutes on the weekend.

• Workers aged 25-34 spend the least amount of time in an office. This demographic spend nearly six fewer hours in an office each week compared to workers aged 35-64. Seeing as workers in the 25-34 age group are the workers of the future

and have at least three decades of work ahead of them, we expect hours spent working in an office to decline going forwards.

• Working hours do not differ much within the 18-64 age groups, but workers aged 65 and above work significantly longer hours, averaging 43 hours per week. However, workers aged 65 and above would also choose to work the longest hours, so this may be out of choice rather than necessity.

In a competitive talent market, it is more important than ever for employers to appear attractive to both current and potential employees. Despite this, over half of British employees are dissatisfied with their current job. Our new research, in which we surveyed over 2,000 office-based workers, explores how workers’ current and ideal work week compare.

71% of respondents have access to flexible

working

The ideal workingweek is 32 hours

Workers aged 25-34 spend the least amount

of time in an office

Workers’ perception of flexible working policies is overwhelmingly positive, with only 3% of our survey respondents claiming that it does not benefit them in any way. Employers appear to appreciate the importance of flexible working for attracting and retaining talent, with 71% of our respondents having a flexible working arrangement in place.

79% of our respondents working in serviced offices are offered flexible working arrangements, compared to only 70% for workers in traditional offices. The most frequently cited reason for traditional office workers benefitting from flexible working arrangements is that it helps with commuting times, with 44% of traditional office workers stating that this is the case.

The most commonly mentioned reason for serviced office workers benefitting from flexible working is that it helpsimprove productivity. Making childcare arrangements easier and helping with life admin tasks (such as going to bank appointments) are also key ways in which employees benefit from flexible working.

Employer does not offer flexible working

Employer offers flexible working

Don’t know

Figure 1: 71% of workers are offered flexible working arrangements Availability of flexible working to employers

Figure 2: Helping with commuting times and improving productivity are the most commonly cited benefits of flexible workingHow flexible working benefits employees:

Source: Workthere, 4Media

Source: Workthere, 4Media

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Improves social life

Helps with pet care

Increases job satisfaction

Helps with health priorities

Helps with life admin priorities

Helps with childcare arrangements

Improves productivity

Helps with commuting times

Traditional office Serviced office

Firstly, what is flexible working?It is a way of working that suits an employee’s needs and can be split into two key categories: flexibility in terms of hours and flexibility in terms of location.

Flexible Working Policies and BenefitsAvailability of flexible working arrangements for office workers

Despite the majority of our respondents having flexible working arrangements available to them, over half said that they would not work remotely and only 1% of employees work from home for more than 29 hours per week. However, only 7% of employees that are offered flexible working do not use it, which implies that a significant portion of workers use flexible working arrangements in other ways, for example working versatile hours.

The fact that over half our respondents would not work remotely highlights two important questions: how comfortable do employees feel about working remotely and do they actually want to? On one hand, some workers prefer working in an office, particularly given working from home or noisy coffee shops can be distracting. On the other hand, if a company has a culture that equates hours spent at an office desk with output and dedication, then even if they wish to, employees will be less likely to work remotely.

Working locationIs the working week still spent in the office?

At home

Figure 3: 79% of the average working week is spent in an officeTime spent by location during the working week:

Figure 4: 25-34 year olds spend 73% of their working hours in an office compared to an average of 83% of workers aged 35-64Time spent by location and age range during the working week:

The 25-34 age group spend the least amount of time working in an office and are most likely to think that flexible working benefits them in some way. This demographic spend just 73% of their working hours in an office, compared to 83% for the 35-64 age range, which work out as 5 ¾ fewer hours.

Only a quarter of workers aged 55-64 would work from home, compared to over half of respondents aged 25-34. Seeing as workers aged 25-34 have at least three decades of work ahead of them, and potentially significantly longer with life expectancies increasing, in the future we expect to see fewer hours of the working week spent in an office and more hours spent working remotely.

Source: Workthere, 4Media

Source: Workthere, 4Media

Out of the office

In the office

At home

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

At home

65+55-6445-5435-4425-3418-24

Outside of the office

In the office

At home

Working Days and HoursWhat is the ideal working week?

Figure 5: The average working week of 38 hours is six hours longer than the ideal working weekTime spent by location during the working week

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%49+ h

39-48 h

29-38 h

10-28h

Less than 10h

Actual working hoursIdeal working hours

Figure 6: Traditional office workers would ideally work one hour and 42 minutes on the weekend compared to two hours and 25 minutes for serviced office workersPreferred working hours by day of the week

01 23 45 67 8Sunday

Saturday

Friday

Thursday

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Working hours are a controversial topic. At one end of the spectrum you have Jack Ma, the CEO of Alibaba, endorsing a 12-hour work day, six days a week, equating to 72 hours a week. On the other end of the spectrum, last year metal and engineering workers in Germany won the right to a 28-hour work week. It is worth noting that longer working hours do not always lead to higher output. Many of us will relate to Parkinson’s Law, which states that ‘work expands to fill the time available for its completion’. Additionally, mistakes are more common amongst exhausted workers, studies show that working fewer hours results in less sick days and a shorter working week tends to result in a happier workforce.

The average working week is 38 hours. Working hours do not differ much within the 18-64 age groups, but workers aged 65 and above work significantly longer hours, averaging 43 hours per week. However, given they also prefer working longer hours, are less likely to have financial commitments relating to youngchildren and will be receiving a UK state pension, this could be because workers in this age category are more likely to choose to work longer hours because they enjoy their jobs, rather than out of financial necessity. The longest working hours are seen in the West Midlands, East England/East Anglia and Northern Ireland.

The ideal work week would be 32 hours, which is six hours shorter than the average working week. 7% of respondents work more than 49 hours a week, but only 3% of workers would choose to. In terms of ideal working days, respondents favour working towards the beginning of the week, with workers preferring to work longer days on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Serviced office workers are more likely to want to work on weekends, ideally working two hours and 25 minutes, compared to one hour and 42 minutes for traditional office workers. Londoners are significantly more likely to want to work on a weekend, perhaps to avoid rush hour chaos and tube delays.

The average working week is 38 hours

Source: Workthere, 4Media

Source: Workthere, 4Media

Workers aged 65+ average 43 hours

per week

The ideal working week is 32 hours

Serviced office workers are more likely to want

to work on the weekends

Serviced office

Traditional office

Appendix: Survey MethodologyOur survey included 2,003 office workers in the United Kingdom. All of our survey respondents consider themselves to be full-time employees with jobs that are primarily based in an office. 86% of our respondents work in traditional offices and 14% in serviced offices. The gender split is relatively even, with 55% of respondents being male and 45% female.

The most frequently cited employer activities for both types of offices are: (a) manufacturing, (b) education health and social work and (c) financial and business services. Nearly half of the office workers that we surveyed worked in these three categories combined. In general, we did not see a significant difference in

65+55-6445-54

35-4425-3418-24

Figure 7: The majority of our respondents are aged 18-44Composition of respondents by age range:

Other

Creative industries

Construction

Wholesale and retail trade

Public administration and defence

Financial and business services

Education, health and social work

Manufacturing

Figure 8: The most frequently cited employer activities for our respondents are: (a) manufacturing, (b) education health and social work and (c) financial and business servicesComposition of respondents by sector:

Source: Workthere, 4Media

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Cal LeeHead of Workthere +44 (0) 20 7409 8807cal.lee@workthere.com

Get in touch for further information

Jess AldersonGlobal Research+44 (0) 207 409 4561 jessica.alderson@workthere.com

Workthere.comWorkthere is a business by Savills focused solely on helping businesses find flexible office space, whether that’s a serviced office, co-working or shared space.

Liz Williams BewPR Director+44 (0) 20 7409 8140 lwbew@savills.com