Latest figures from industry body and fruit supplier, British Summer Fruits, reveal that on average employees work an extra 30 hours a month unpaid – leaving them too busy to put their own health and well-being first.
With few people working 9-5 nowadays, many struggle to keep up with higher demands – 44% admitting to sending work emails between 11pm and 6am and 17% to working in the evenings because there is a culture of working long hours. It’s not surprising therefore that 30% feel they don’t have enough downtime.
What’s more, 53% of the 1,000 full-time employees surveyed said they drink strong coffee for an energy boost, 27% snack on sweets and 14% have energy drinks.
However, reliance on caffeine is also making it harder for Brits (61%) to switch off when they get home after a long day’s work at the office:
- 64% said work has affected their sleep patterns
- 25% said that if they wake up in the night, they will do work to ease their workload the next day - millennials are more likely to do so than other generations
- 17% would fear for their job if they didn’t check and reply to emails after normal working hours
Dr Emma Derbyshire, Public Health nutritionist and spokesperson for British Summer Fruits, said: “This research paints a bleak picture for British workers.
“While the advancement of technology has helped us in our professional careers, it also means we are contactable 24 /7 and for many, it makes the ability to switch off very hard.
“We spend such a huge proportion of our lives at work anyway, it’s depressing to hear that so many professionals are having to work until the early hours of the morning in order to catch-up on their heavy work-load.
“Relying on caffeinated drinks and sugary foods to keep us going is compounding the issue, making it harder for us all to switch off.
“It’s important that people fuel up in the correct way to ensure they feel energised for the whole day, without having to rely on caffeine and sugar.”