Workaholic Brits will spend more than three times as many hours with their office colleagues than with their children – new research has found.
The study by office experts LondonOffices.com quizzed a focus group on the amount of time they have with their children in a working week.
Researchers found that on a typical day, office workers had on average 173 minutes, 2.8 hours, with their children.
This figure was comprised of 47 minutes of family time in the morning and 126 minutes in the evening.
Across the working week, Monday to Friday, this equates to just 865 minutes, 14.4 hours.
However, when respondents were asked about how much ‘quality’ time they felt they had with their children, just 48 minutes a day came out as the average.
The study also revealed that we spend on average 8.7 hours with office colleagues each day, or 43.5 hours over the course of a working week.
This represents a more than 200% increase in the amount of hours full-time office workers get to spend with their children.
One man who took part in the focus group commented: “I really wish I could spend more time with the kids during the week, but that is what you have to sacrifice to put food on the table.
“At least I have the weekends with them. Plus as they get older they’ll be able to stay up later in the evenings so we’ll get more time then.”
One woman said: “It’s really hard sometimes especially for us working mums. If anything it makes the weekends that bit more precious.
“If I had my way I would love to start work in the morning much earlier so I could have more time with the kids in the evening.”
A spokesperson for LondonOffices.com commented: “Family time is really precious and it’s a shame parents don’t get more.
“I doubt people realise how much time they spend with their colleagues until they actually sit down and work it out.
“This just highlights the importance of maintaining good office relationships, after all, if you are spending nearly 44 hours with these people every week it’s vital that you get on.”
