The news comes from Rotaready’s latest survey, which found that shift workers in the retail, hospitality and leisure industries overstate their working hours by almost half an hour a week on average.
Together, the combined 8.3 million workforce cost UK businesses £37m a week, or £1.9m a year.
Citing rota scheduling issues as the main reason for overstating hours, employees also say they do it because they worked through their break; have too much to do; are underpaid and because everyone else does.
It has also resulted in 53% of shift workers pulling a sickie because they feel they were ‘correcting an injustice.’
According to the survey, rota-related concerns are the main cause of absences. 48% claim making shift patterns ‘fairer’ would have prevented them from pulling a sickie, while 38% said sharing the rota in better time would help.
Rotaready co-founder Carl Holloway said: “The huge problem of phantom hours is a symptom of shift workers feeling they’re unfairly treated at work.
“However, managing a workforce is no easy feat for employers, especially across multiple sites. Managers are being forced to work with antiquated and inflexible systems – in many cases still using pen and paper – to handle complex issues such as payroll, forecasting and staff scheduling.”