A comprehensive new study has exposed a significant productivity crisis within UK offices, revealing that workers are spending nearly six hours each week on routine administrative tasks that could potentially be managed by artificial intelligence tools.
The Staggering Cost of Routine Work
Research conducted with 2,000 UK adults indicates that office employees waste an average of five hours and forty-two minutes weekly on mundane administrative duties. Given the average salary of surveyed workers was £56,000, this translates to an astonishing daily loss of £387 million for UK businesses, accumulating to over £100 billion annually across the economy.
Email Overload Dominates Working Days
The study identified drafting and responding to emails as the single biggest drain on productive time, cited by 26% of participants. This activity alone consumes almost two hours of the average working day, with reading emails adding further to the time burden.
Other particularly time-consuming tasks include analysing data (15%), manually entering information into systems (14%), researching information online (14%), and preparing reports (13%).
Human Impact and Workplace Consequences
The research reveals profound effects on employee wellbeing and retention. A substantial 57% of participants reported feeling overwhelmed by their administrative workload, while 46% confessed that the burden had led them to contemplate leaving their current positions.
Rich Hollingsworth, CEO and co-founder of Fyxer which conducted the research as part of its Admin Burden Index, commented: "Admin has quietly embedded itself into modern work. An extra 10 minutes here, an hour there, spread across hundreds or thousands of employees, quickly compounds into massive costs."
The Automation Paradox
Despite increasing availability of automation technology, the study uncovered that 32% of workers seldom or never use any tools to support their administrative duties. Among the 47% who do utilise such tools, many expressed a need for more effective solutions.
"AI is ready and able to lift this burden, and workers are eager to accept the help," Hollingsworth noted. "But they're not seeing the tools they're given actually rise to the challenge."
Broader Workplace Implications
The research indicates that 32% of workers believe administrative duties detract from their primary responsibilities, while 30% think these tasks demand an excessive level of meticulousness that hampers productivity.
Over half (53%) reported a surge in their overall workload during the past year, attributing more than a quarter (28%) of this increase specifically to administrative tasks. Consequently, 34% admitted to working beyond their contracted hours multiple times each week, with 8% doing so daily.
The Top Ten Time-Consuming Administrative Tasks
- Writing or replying to emails
- Reading emails
- Analysing or summarising data
- Entering or updating data in spreadsheets or systems
- Researching information online
- Preparing reports
- Organising files and documents
- Responding to customer queries
- Tracking project progress or deadlines
- Managing to-do lists or task reminders
Hollingsworth concluded: "Menial, repetitive admin might seem low stakes, but it's a major source of stress for even the highest-paid, most senior talent. Saddling workers with tasks that add little value kills focus, morale, and revenue."
"Email epitomises this for so many: they're expected to accept hours in their inboxes because it's the status quo, while they scramble to do their real, meaningful work in the time they have left."
