Rising Trend of Office Moths - 17/08/2007
officebroker.com has been talking to businesses across Britain to find out if office moths - those employees who regularly work late into the night - are on the rise.
Founded by entrepreneurs Jim Venables and Andy Haywood in 2001, officebroker.com is the UK's leading online office broker and a multi-million pound enterprise.
The company is in a unique position in that it has access to thousands of office workers and businesses across the country and recently asked some of these companies whether long hours and regular late night unpaid overtime shifts were still a regular occurrence.
And the general consensus was "yes".
Operations director of Evans Easyspace, which currently has 48 business centres open across the UK looking after over 1200 businesses - including one in Peterborough, Ian Frostwick said: "Based on our experience, it is true to say that working late is still very much on the rise in British business today, and to cater for this growing demand we allow 24/7 access to all Evans Business Centres.
The Evans Easyspace concept is based on flexibility and it is important that our clients can access their workspace anytime they need to, and for any length of time. While we don't wholly advocate the office moth, the reality is that this breed is certainly not in decline."
In fact many business centres throughout the UK are now beginning to operate 24/7 to cater for the growing demand of office moths as the traditional nine to five is fast becoming a thing of the past.
Jim Venables, managing director of officebroker.com, said: "While there will always be times when each of us can expect to have to work late, say in a business crisis or start up situation for example, I believe that when people are working late on a regular basis, not only is there something wrong but also this is bad for business.
"People's productivity levels fall when they are tired, overworked or unhappy with their employment situation."
Cited reasons included, the rise of the 'I want it now' culture which thrives in Britain's increasingly busy society. Often, if goods and services aren't immediately available they will go elsewhere, so businesses will extend their hours accordingly.
