Beds giant, Dreams, commissioned a PR research with Atomik Research to find out more about the UK’s relationship with overtime. The survey polled 2000 UK adults who work in Blue Collar or Pink Collar industries who they have the capability to work from home. Specifically the research looked into the impact of working overtime and the effects on sleeping and dreaming, and general lifestyle habits.
Key findings of the PR research included:
- 62% of employees work at home, after their contracted working hours, more than once a week
- 33% spend between 1 and 2 hours working after their contracted hours are officially over that day. This equates to an average of 4 hours extra a week – or 192 hours extra a year
- 47% check their work emails in bed
- 54% check their work emails first thing in the morning when they wake up
- 77% of workers actually wake up from sleep due to thinking about work
- 52% dream about their jobs – the main story lines feature our boss, being late for work, and failing to meet what is expected of us
- 25% of workers sacrifice their usual bed time to work late
- 22% have sacrificed catching up with friends to work late
- 62% of workers say they would sacrifice their plans at least once a week for work
- 63% agree that logging into work outside of work hours affects their ability to wind down and go to sleep
The research formed the basis of a press release by Dreams which picked up coverage across the UK including articles on the London Evening Standard and MSN UK.
