Marketing is officially the UK’s hardest-working industry. A recent survey from Workfront revealed that marketers work longer hours and spend more time sending emails than those working in other industries. The results show that there is an over-working epidemic in the marketing world with almost half of marketers (48%) admitting to having New Year’s resolutions based around work, a figure much higher than the general office workers (35%).
The survey found that nearly half (48.9%) of marketers log into emails before and after working hours and almost the same percentage (48%) logged into emails every single weekend. Moreover, almost a quarter (23.6%) said they logged into emails two to three weekends a month. But are we actually performing better by being constantly switched on?
According to recent research, the main reasons why we check our emails so frequently range from having too much work (33.3%) to wanting to be available to contact our clients at any time of the day or night (28%). However, the most resounding answer given by almost half of marketers (44%) was to stay ahead of work.
Although we are working more overtime and dedicating extra resources to ensuring tasks are completed, we’re still not focusing on the primary duties of our job. We’ve discovered from our research that the most common cause for conflict between our teams is poor communication leading to loss of productivity.
On top of this, in a recent report, psychologists warned that constantly checking emails is a “toxic cause of stress” and could lead to increased anxiety and tension. If we work long hours, we are three times more likely to feel stressed or burnt out, which significantly reduces our productivity.
Of course working efficiently – within the confinements of office hours - can help you grow both personally and professionally and there are resources available to help you do this.
The problems arise when we’re using every weekend and holiday to catch up or stay ahead. Often while you may be getting ahead of the game temporarily, it may be counter-productive in the long run and all this work could have been completed already if we were more productive during office hours.
Luckily, there are solutions to resolve these issues and lost productivity. We live in a technologically rich world, so by embracing tech that helps with our jobs – like virtual offices, work management platforms etc – we can cut out wasted time. By reducing time spent on email, spreadsheets and traditional marketing tools and replacing them with more robust solutions that look after all elements of project management, time management, communication and proofing, we can be more productive.
It appears marketers are one step ahead and have already identified how they can move forward in 2016: almost a quarter of them (24.4%) stated more efficient processes would help them work less and be more productive. More advanced technology was also cited by over 20 per cent of marketers as another solution that could help reduce our hours spent on overtime.
Start Q2 by making the most of the tools available to you and cut out unnecessary emails and meetings, but also think about how you use your free time. Unwinding at weekends with friends or family, doing things that you enjoy and relaxing contribute as much to increased productivity as working hard does.
By Joe Staples, Chief Marketing Officer at Workfront
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