Office worker survey: Moaners and noisy eaters among top gripes

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man eating over computerImage source, bowie15, Thinkstock

If your colleague 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 distractions caused by colleagues led to workers losing 22 minutes each day on average.

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

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, irritations involving colleagues, IT problems and workplace issues resulted in workers wasting five-and-a-half hours a week, Samsung suggests.

Image source, Thinkstock

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 specialises in workplace issues, said addressing the issue could help improve productivity:

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

Office life bugbears

Technology: crashing computers, slow internet, no access to emails

Colleagues: moaning, eating loudly or messily, interruptions while talking

Workplace: being too hot or too cold, uncomfortable seats, messy workplace