What Bugs Office Workers the Most

If your colleagues’ munching loudly on their lunch is driving you mad then you’re not alone.

Noisy or messy eaters, alongside moaning, were among the top complaints of 1,000 office workers asked to name their biggest workplace irritations.

The survey commissioned by electronics giant Samsung suggests such habits also result in workers losing an average 22 minutes off an individual day.

However, workers said issues with technology were their biggest problem, bbc.com reported.

An overwhelming majority (92%) said crashing computers and slow internet annoyed them and resulted in them losing almost half an hour of working time a day on average.

The other issue bothering office workers was the temperature - with 82% saying being too hot or too cold was their biggest frustration.

In total, office irritations resulted in workers wasting five-and-a-half hours a week, claims Samsung.

The biggest risk to businesses is that such annoyances could push people into quitting. Almost a third of those surveyed said they had left a job because of an irritating colleague, 20% because of the workplace itself and 10% because of technology frustrations.

The survey by consultancy Censuswide questioned 1,000 workers from small UK firms with under 250 employees.

University of Manchester professor Sir Cary Cooper, who specializes in workplace issues, said addressing the issue could help improve productivity:

“This is a big issue for the UK as it currently ranks 7th in the G7 and 17th in the G20 on productivity per person, showing that these distractions could be causing a big impact.”