Employees across the UK spend an average of 50 minutes a
day indulging in activities at their desks such as texting,
using social networking sites and making personal phone
calls, yet are reluctant to spend time getting to grips
with their finances, according to the latest research from
Axa.
Ahead of its initiative known as My Budget Day, where the
company is urging employees across the nation to spend an
hour a month working on their finances and evaluating any
loans they may have, Axa has found that 14 hours a month is
taken up by what it calls social not-working.
The research reflected that every week, employees in the UK
spend around 42 minutes emailing friends and family and in
the region of 26 minutes on social networking sites. This
is time that Axa suggests could be better used looking on
the internet for online loans, searching for a loan quote
or otherwise evaluating and planning their financial
situation.
Axa is encouraging employers to get involved with the
budgeting drive by allowing employees an hour a month to
plan their financial future and ascertain their current
financial situation, making the best of this non-working
time.
Pat Brady from Axa said: “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.”
Activities such as gambling, gossiping and booking holidays
also make up employees’ non-work time, with certain
regions of the country more affected than others. The east
and west Midlands were found to be the biggest users of
online portals shopping at work - time that could perhaps
be better spent looking for a personal loan on the
internet. The north-west was the place for gossips, while
texting was a popular work time-waster in Scotland.
Greater London was found to be the place where a number of
activities were most prevalent, with emailing friends and
family, booking holidays, gambling, making personal phone
calls and using social networking sites all happening for a
longer amount of time there than anywhere else in the UK.
Axa is suggesting that such time could easily be put to
better use, especially with the aid of the internet, to
find online loans or to plan a budget more effectively.
The proposed move has been welcomed by union Unite and its
national officer, David Fleming: “This initiative is
providing employees with an opportunity to help tackle a
great cause of stress in the workplace - financial worries.
Unite welcomes this scheme as a positive step in addressing
the widespread issue of financial exclusion.”
Last month, Chris Tapp from Credit Action highlighted the
need for consumers to spend more time planning their
finances suggesting that interest rate changes had caused
consumers to struggle with repayments on mortgages and
other loans. Mr Tapp said that more people are visiting
services such as Credit Action to ask for advice on how to
repay their mortgage.
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Abbi Rouse writes for All About Loans. Our visitors are
offered advice and information all about loans, they can
also apply online for tenant loans and secured loans for
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