A recent survey has revealed that not all homeworkers keep the same hours and some require extra motivation to reach full speed at their job.

Conducted by CareerBuilder, the study looked at over 5,000 Americans and found that 17 per cent do the bare minimum when they work from home. However, 40 per cent were found to be working between four and seven hours a day and 35 per cent are working for eight hours or more.

The statistics are an improvement on the 2007 survey when just 18 per cent managed eight hours or more.

A number of distractions were identified as taking people's focus away from their jobs. The top distraction identified was household chores, with 31 per cent procrastinating in this way. Meanwhile, 26 per cent were distracted by the TV and 23 per cent by pets. Just 15 per cent said that children were responsible for interrupting their business activities.

Rosemary Haefner, vice-president of human resources at CareerBuilder, commented: “To avoid situations where telecommuters aren’t putting in the necessary time, managers need to be clear about expectations and establish daily objectives.

“The autonomy of working from home can be very rewarding so long as it doesn’t diminish productivity.”