The United Kingdom and the Netherlands stand out, with employees “working until 8 pm, leaving regularly later than usual to end a long working day,” he added.
However, officials in Denmark, Belgium and Spain initially saw an increase in working hours, but have since returned to their pre-pandemic schedule, NordVPN teams said in a statement.
NordVPN Teams, which works with more than 10,000 companies, analyzed the amount of data sent through servers to calculate employees’ working hours.
The company recorded “no significant drop in the use of business VPNs at lunchtime, indicating possible short lunch breaks during remote work,” it added.
She also noticed a 41% increase in corporate VPN server traffic on Thanksgiving Day compared to the average weekend, which the company says “suggests people are spending family time working”
Although the server data cannot distinguish between work and personal use, NordVPN said he is confident that his research reflects more hours of work.
“Technically, someone can perform personal tasks while connected to their company’s VPN, but we found that employees generally treat work resources with care and, in most cases, do not use them properly,” said Auste Valikonyte, port company spokesperson, CNN.
“There are personal VPNs on the market that are normally used for personal purposes.”
A separate survey by Wildgoose, a company that offers virtual team building experiences for companies, found that 55% of UK employees say they should work outside normal hours while working from home and 74% experienced fatigue, stress or burnout during the pandemic.
Wildgoose spoke with employees from 133 UK companies and found that 44% said their workload increased while working at home, and 31% reported an impact on their mental health, such as feeling depressed, anxious or exhausted since the move to work from home during the pandemic.
“While we have all grown accustomed to working from home as the pandemic continued, it continues to present enormous challenges in maintaining the right balance between work and personal life,” said Wildgoose managing director Jonny Edser in a statement.
“With the increase in workload and a worrying trend of working until sick, people’s jobs are becoming increasingly confused with their home lives at a time when it is crucial that the two remain distinct from each other.”