NEW research reveals that the average British business person only manages to complete three hours and 50 minutes of constructive work each day.

In fact, 51 per cent of office time is now devoted to fielding unnecessary e-mails and phone calls.

The research, commissioned by car maker Cadillac, asked more than 1,000 UK business people about their office efficiency, to mark the launch of its new "Backseat Boardroom" initiative.

The initiative aims to increase constructive working by offering chauffeured Cadillac cars as mobile "think" spaces that people can use to completely escape unnecessary office distractions.

Despite working the longest hours in Europe, nearly half (44 per cent) of those surveyed say their most productive working occurs outside of the office on their journey into and out of work - with office distractions taking up an average of four hours, 10 minutes every day.

By only using 49 per cent of the working day constructively, office workers are wasting in excess of 20 working hours a week - 960 hours a year - costing UK businesses £140billion in lost labour costs.

Worryingly, three quarters say they have suffered stress or "office rage" caused by an overload of internal distractions.

The top five office distractions are:

1. reading and responding to unnecessary e-mails
2. surfing the internet for non-work-related means
3. idle office gossip
4. malfunctioning computers
5. answering pointless internal phone calls.

Although technology has undoubtedly improved the way people work, 71 per cent of office workers believe we have now reached a tipping point, where people are shunning face-to-face, human communication in favour of hiding behind e-mail communications.

Research found that 39 per cent of all office e-mails travel less than 100 metres from sender to recipient, resulting in 82 per cent of business people admitting they spend up to three hours a day reading and replying to internal communication.

Indeed, 39 per cent of office workers say they would like their boss to follow in the footsteps of John Caudwell, the multi-millionaire founder of high-street retailer Phones 4-U, who, in 2003, banned e-mail throughout his company in preference of face-to-face meetings.

Caudwell estimated that the ban would save workers three hours a day and at least £1million a month in saved time.

To book a chauffeured Cadillac SRX "Backstreet Boardroom", call - not e-mail! - 020 7841 6668.

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