Huge amounts of time are being wasted at workplaces because of fragmented communications systems.

A new study by Canadian firm Insignia Research shows that business with more than 1,000 employees could rack up costs of almost £6.5 million each year because of this issue.

Respondents claimed that workers lost productivity averaging 7.8 hours per month at offsite locations because they lack the communication tools that they have in their main office. The lack of effective remotely-accessible communications systems can have a "dramatic" impact.

As well as this, some 94 per cent of respondents said that they wait an average of 5.3 hours per week for information that they need to complete tasks.

Jim Burton of market research firm UC Strategies said: "Never before has a study so clearly captured the extent of the frustration felt by individuals, managers and teams, and so completely quantified the extraneous costs leaking out of the enterprise as a result.

"Aside from the hard costs uncovered in the survey, there are soft but very real costs in terms of customer responsiveness and satisfaction."

An increasing number of companies are coming to rely on remote working and IT support is useful to help them keep on track.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent).