Almost half of work-obsessed Britain’s will be email watching as double-dip recession and eurozone chaos breeds a nation of Christmas neurotics

Forty six percent of the adult population so fear losing their job, that even over Christmas they will sneak a peek at their emails, with 15 percent confessing they’ll be looking at them frequently and 31 percent intermittently. Only 34 percent said they will not look at any work emails over the festivities.

One eye on the Queen, the other on their emails The survey, conducted by OnePoll amongst 1000 people in full time work and sponsored by SecurEnvoy – the global leader of tokenless® two-factor authentication, found that while 21 percent of people say that it isn’t necessary or expected of them to be in touch with their company over Christmas, one in five people felt competitively disadvantaged if they didn’t keep on top of their emails this Christmas.

Interestingly it is the younger element of the workforce that feel the most pressure with those in the 18-24 year old bracket most inclined to look at their emails, while the over 50s feel a little more inclined to kick back, relax and not worry about looking at emails. It would appear that we do still have some boundaries as 28 percent admitted they would be very angry if work called them on their personal phone over the Xmas break and 18 percent said that, if their boss or work colleagues rang them over this period it make them “really annoyed.”

Worryingly, what the survey also revealed is that, at this festive time of year, security is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Forty-six percent of people confessed that they don’t use any sort of security on their phones, not even a four pin passcode, even though almost half will be looking at their business emails that could include sensitive information and unencrypted documents. Statistics confirm that homes are more likely to be targeted by burglars in the winter months, with domestic break-ins rising by 63 percent during this time. Longer hours of darkness and homes filled with extra items in preparation for Christmas are two of the biggest factors which lead to higher levels of burglaries.

With this in mind, Andy Kemshall, SecurEnvoy CTO and co-founder warns, “If you’re accessing the corporate network to retrieve emails, using a password or hardware token that’s left next to your PC just isn’t adequate, should Santa, his elves or someone a little more sinister drop by and liberate you of your token or copy your password, they could be stealing vast amounts of critical company data. Far better to use your mobile phone as your authentication token as this is more lightly to be kept with you and still needs a separate pin or password entering. Have a very merry, relaxed but secure, Christmas.”