2006 World Cup office staff achieved eleven times as much as their 1966 counterparts

Office workers crashing through the workload to get home in time for a World Cup kick-off in 2006 achieved more than 11 times as much in a working day as their 1966 counterparts.

Manchester-based Unicom, which specialises in telecoms and broadband for the small business market, has charted and compared workload and work achievement changes in the past 40 years since Englandís last World Cup win.

Their research found that to achieve a dayís work in 2006 using 1966 telecoms and technology would take 80 hours and 35 minutes - two working weeks. Using 2006 technology in 1966 would have meant a working week of just three hours and 26 minutes.

We studied one of our own teams. Taking all the administrative tasks that might go on in their office, it takes around seven hours and ten minutes to get through them. When we stripped out their access to technology, each task took on average more than 11 times longer, said Chris Earle of Unicom.

It is quite astonishing how much we have come to rely on instant - or at least fast - communication. Much of our communication in 1966 was by letter - even urgent matters. Urgent in 2006 means instantaneous.

Typically, in 2006, we write and circulate an email - or a memo as they used to be - to staff in a matter of a few minutes. In 1966, it involved manually typing it, with carbon paper - sometimes several times - and then walking round handing it out, and perhaps pinning several on notice boards.

Ordering something for the office supplies cupboard might have taken a 20 minute phone call, a manual order-take, five days for a cheque to clear, a wait for manufacturer to provide the supplier, then the delivery to the office.

We think nothing of going on the Internet, ordering, buying and paying for goods and receiving them the next day.

Travel is perhaps the most dramatic demonstration: we can check fares, buy flights, rental cars and hotels, research a destination and check-in online - going from booking to boarding in 45 minutes in some cases. We estimate that the same arrangement would have taken 26 working hours or more in 1966.

And if the boss was out of the country in 1966 it might have taken a day to get a message to him - today itís instant by mobile, text or even mobile email.

We canít help but think what the reaction to such speed and technology might have been with a working week of just three hours and 26 minutes in 1966.

Typical comparisons:

- Writing and sending a letter in 1966, approx 50 minutes (2006 - 15 mins).
- Ordering and receiving office supplies in 1966, 104 hours (2006 - 16 hours).
- Banking. Two hours in 1966 (2006 - 10 mins).
- Get hold of the boss while heís abroad to have him make a decision: 24 hours in 1966 (2006 - instantly).