Employees spend more than 14 hours a month, or 40 minutes of our working day, “social not-working”, according to research from financial services company AXA.

The study found that employees use up on average around five and a half days of the working year sending text messages, emailing friends and family, visiting social net-working websites, making personal phone calls and gossiping.

Add other activities, such as online shopping, booking holidays and even gambling at their desks to the equation and employees are spending more than 50 minutes every single day on non-work related activities.  

The research found that Londoners are most guilty of spending time “social not-working”.  They spend more time than any other region emailing friends and family, looking at social networking sites and making personal phone calls. However, when it comes to gossiping in the office, employees in the North West spend 13 minutes a day compared to people in the South East and East Anglia who spend less than 10 minutes a day chatting to colleagues.  Scots spend the most time texting, and those in the Midlands are most likely to indulge in online shopping while at work.

Pat Brady from AXA, says: “We all have to start taking greater responsibility for the financial state of the nation and employers can play a really important role.  With employees already spending some time on non-work related activities, giving them official time to take part needn’t result in a hit on productivity.  In fact, we have seen through our pilot, that employees are actually more motivated as a result of this initiative.

“A lack of motivation to deal with financial matters is arguably at the heart of our country’s enormous personal debt problem.  If employers can help people to recognise the value of spending time reviewing their finances it could go some way to addressing this.”