In a survey recently carried out by iPass, an Enterprise global Wi-Fi network provided, they reveal that from the 1,700 employees they survey in 1,100 different organisations worldwide, 2/3 of staff say they are working an additional 50 – 60  hours per week as well as often working weekends.
But despite this , most said they would do anything possible to get an internet connection, with almost 1/3saying they hijack unsecured networks and another 1/3 say they actually drive around in their cars in a desperate search for free Wi-Fi.

There are obviously knock on effects to this type of working:

• almost a 20% increase in a year of mobile workers reporting they were waking up through the night due to stress.
• The idea of mobile working to help reduce the stress of commuting to the office, seems to have been replaced not eliminated
• mobile workers themselves need to take care to manage the unique stressors that an always-connected work life brings.

Maybe not surprisingly mobile usage is causing “slightly increased friction” in mobile workers’ personal lives with their partners, family and friends. The highest amount of friction was reported in Europe at 38%.

Some other findings from this survey:

• 88%  felt that cable-free access was “as important to their lives, or almost, as running water and electricity”.
• 95% reported significant reductions in their job productivity without wireless access.
• 58% expressed frustration accessing corporate applications that are not optimised for smart phones and tablets