Stuck working late? Blame your workmates

Workers are blaming poor teamwork and pointless meetings for leaving them stuck late at the office.

A survey of 38,000 workers in 200 countries found that people work on average 45 hours per week but consider about 17 of those hours - two days a week - to be unproductive.

Nearly six hours a week are spent in meetings and workers said they receive on average 42 emails every day. Just over half (55 per cent) linked their productivity directly to the software they used.

The 2,200 UK respondents to the productivity survey, sponsored by Microsoft, said a lack of team communication and ineffective meetings are the top time wasters.

Two thirds agreed the ability to find electronic documents when needed was a factor in their productivity.

Dr Carsten Sorensen, senior lecturer in Information Systems at the London School of Economics, said: "Access to information, be it in an electronic document, a colleague's head or held collectively by a team is the very key to the success of the new economy."

And he warned: "Outdated management views on working are stifling communication and collaboration and contributing to the continuing productivity gap between the UK and continental Europe."

Microsoft's information worker lead Nicola Casey said the results showed productivity is shaped by workers' ability to communicate and collaborate with our colleagues.

"The growing volumes of information that workers are now expected to manage requires far greater integration than ever before," she added.