Friday feeling costs firms £50m
August 3, 2007
British businesses are losing more than £50m a year because of employees skipping off work on Friday afternoons.
A growing number of staff are treating the last day of the working week as an unofficial holiday, a company claims.
It found the top excuses for starting the weekend early are a long lunch, doctor's appointment and an out-of-office meeting near to home.
The company which produced the study says it has developed a computer programme to track employee absence.
Rush hour
Personnel software company Employersafe also said the "Friday Feeling" trend has been reinforced by motoring organisations which report that the Friday rush hour now starts around noon.
Pam Rogerson, head of personnel at Employersafe, said: "Our evidence suggests that more and more workers are seeing Friday afternoon as an unofficial holiday.
"We have estimated that this is costing British business just over £50m a year, which all goes to form part of the overall £13bn cost of workplace absenteeism."
The company has developed a software system which detects patterns of absence and recommends appropriate disciplinary action.
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