Working Weekends Are the Way of The World

The idea that South African employees put away their laptops at 5pm on a Friday afternoon and do not think about work until waking up on Monday morning is a fantasy.

The reality is that more and more South Africans are spending large chunks of designated rest and rejuvenation time doing that which dominates weekday hours - work.

A recent study of employees in the UK, undertaken by a female-only insurer, found that increased workloads have led to 29% of employees claiming never to switch off from work at all.

“The survey showed that 10 years ago, half of Brits worked on the weekend, compared to 70% today,” notes Robyn Farrell, managing director of 1st for Women Insurance, South Africa’s top female-only insurer.

This includes activities such as checking work emails during the weekend, going into the office or even cutting short or cancelling weekend social engagements for work.

“A small sample of South Africans in their early 30s shows that at some point in their career, every one of them has spent significant amounts of their weekend ensuring that their work projects are completed and deadlines are met. Many of those surveyed said that they often spend between three and eight hours over the course of a weekend working, while others put that figure at an average of one weekend per month spent ensuring that projects are completed,” comments Farrell.

However, the reasons for choosing to do office work during a weekend vary quite dramatically:

• For some, regular and strict deadlines immediately after a weekend dictate that many a weekend is spent in front of a computer.
• Last-minute client requests for work to be completed as a matter of urgency.
• Employees preferring to work comfortably and at a reasonable speed instead of trying to cram everything into weekday work hours or even weekday evenings.
• Allowing for a more flexible weekday schedule for hobbies, gym, admin and socialising.
• Being able to work away from noisy and often quite intrusive office spaces.

A major difference in willingness to work during weekends among this sample is whether or not the individual is self-employed.

“Unsurprisingly, self-employed individuals overwhelmingly indicate that they are far more willing to plug away at their work than laze at the pool or go to the movies, than are employees of firms,” says Farrell.

Self-employed South Africans indicate that they often take on too much work for fear of not being able to make ends meet at the end of the month, and therefore are compelled to spend time that should be used to decompress after a tough week doing even more work.

Of the sample, a minority admitted that they worked during weekends because of poor time management during the week.

“Too much time spent on smoke breaks, surfing the Internet and checking Facebook very often results in genuine ‘off time’ being cut down because of having to catch up,” Farrell says.

Despite the wide variety of reasons offered for working 50-60 hour weeks on occasion, most South African respondents agree that weekends should be for fun and time spent with friends and family - not working.

“Whether or not this is an achievable aim depends largely on the individual and the nature of the work he/she does,” concludes Farrell.