Sales professionals are working harder than ever

by Charlotte Chelsom-Pill

UK sales professionals are working longer hours as only a third of people feel secure in their current employment, a survey has revealed.

With unemployment at an all time high, 66% of those currently in employment were found to believe that their position was under threat.

Evidence collected from the survey conducted by Aaron Wallis, a specialist sales recruitment company suggests that the increased threat of redundancy has caused sales professionals to work harder.

Of the 644 respondents, 79% were found to work in excess of 40 hours per week. 8% of those work 60 hours a week or more.

90% were found to have taken work home at the weekends. 36% of whom answered that they worked every weekend, and 43% regularly work at weekends. This is a dramatic increase from results collected by a similar survey in 2007, when 22% of people answered that they never worked weekends.

The survey also found that more than half of UK sales professionals didn’t take their full holiday entitlement.

Rob Scott, the Managing Director of Aaron Wallis stated “sales people in my experience have always worked hard and most I know work in excess of 50 hours per week, it’s the nature of the business, we’ve got to be there when the clients need us!”