DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A newly commissioned survey by email data protection company, Zix Corporation (ZixCorp), (Nasdaq: ZIXI), gives an honest look at the extent full-time employees in the U.S. spend working outside of their regular ‘9 to 5’ schedule. The USamp conducted study, which surveyed more than 1,000 individuals, revealed that two out of three full-time professionals find themselves working outside of their regular work hours with 57 percent planning to work during their upcoming holiday break.
Just how many hours will they be working during their holiday break? Nearly half of the respondents said they would work for two hours or more per day, with some respondents spending as much as eight hours per day on work.
Why are U.S. employees working during their time off?
The study confirmed there is an expectation that employees should be reachable outside of regular work hours, with 76 percent of respondents saying that it is stated or implied they be accessible, and 68 percent said that being able to access their work outside of regular hours is necessary to do their job effectively.
The survey also found that:
- 80 percent of full-time employees who work outside of regular work hours respond to emails even when their out of office reply is on
- 64 percent of full-time employees work on their days off, with 22 percent working 4 hours or more
- 43 percent of full-time employees spend over an hour working at night after they leave the office
- The primary reason for logging on outside of regular work hours was to answer or check work email
To put these survey results in perspective, if a full-time employee works one extra hour outside regular work hours, then the individual will work an additional 260 hours – or 32 extra work days – over the course of a year.
What does this mean for employers?
Outside of evaluating employee workload, employers should have the appropriate security measures in place for employees accessing corporate data away from the office. Bring-your-own-device policies are particularly essential, since the study found that employees use their personal phones, tablets and laptops to access work after hours more frequently than company-issued mobile devices.
“Not too surprisingly, 75 percent of the individuals surveyed who log on to work outside regular work hours said that the ability to use mobile devices to access work information outside of regular work hours is a positive development,” said Rick Spurr, CEO of ZixCorp. “To meet this growing need to access work outside the traditional office and to enable a more productive workforce, employers should allow the use of mobile devices to access work-related email but only after taking the proper precautions to protect company data. At Zix, we focus on making sure that employee access to work-related email using mobile devices is simple, fast and secure.”
About ZixCorp
ZixCorp is a leader in email data protection. ZixCorp offers industry-leading email encryption, a unique email DLP solution and an innovative email BYOD solution to meet your company’s data protection and compliance needs. ZixCorp is trusted by the nation’s most influential institutions in healthcare, finance and government for easy-to-use secure email solutions. ZixCorp is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol ZIXI, and its headquarters are in Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit www.zixcorp.com.
