Are you doing more overtime than the average worker?

A new study has found that the majority of UK-based employees now work an extra day (8.73 hours) every single week on top of their contracted hours for which almost half are not compensated.

The research, which has been done by OnePulse, revealed that UK employees are working an additional 66 million hours of overtime each week and only 43% of us get compensated for it. amounting to approximately 66 million unpaid hours of work.

Employees who took part in the research claimed overtime includes working through their lunch break (71%) and after hours (79%). Over a third of UK-based employees say they are not able to take 100 percent of their annual leave entitlement, due to excessive workload (37%).

In fact, 4 in every 5 British workers don’t leave work on time most days and 71% feel forced to work through their lunch break to get work done.

Nick Walter, OnePulse Chief Marketing Officer comments on the findings: “As both an employer and an employee, work/life balance is always an interesting debate. The real issue here is the taboo nature of working overtime today.

“Since the start of the UK financial crisis in 2008, there was a nervousness amongst employees, who were urged to up their game to keep their jobs, who is going to speak out?

“Simultaneously, the rise of ‘bring your own device’ into the workplace and innovations in digital technology and improved access to high speed internet, ‘work’ is no longer only possible in the office – work is everywhere we turn.”

A large majority of those who took part even said they would prefer to work longer days for four days a week (10.5 hours) and have a three-day weekend.

The majority of UK-based employees say their weekend is spent recuperating from their busy working week, leaving little energy to do ‘out of work’ activities (66%).

The research also showed that 50% of employees feel stressed and tired at work, with only a quarter stating they feel happy and valued in the workplace.