– 40% of Brits are not looking forward to sharing their space with ‘annoying’ colleagues on the return to office working.
– Co-workers habits and hygiene an issue for nearly a quarter of workers.
– Office temperature wars set to return to offices up and down the country.
Our new study into attitudes towards work as lockdown eases, has revealed that ‘annoying colleagues’ are part of the reason people not wanting to return to the office. Some 40% of the UK workers that we surveyed said irritating behaviour of their fellow employees was the thing they were most dreading about working in an office environment.
Temperature (too hot or too cold) came a close second, with 35% of the vote, suggesting that age-old divisions around where to set the office thermostat will resume when we get back to work.
Nearly a quarter (23%), cited their colleagues’ bad habits – such as chatting, clicking their fingers, humming/singing and whistling – as an issue. While a further 20% said that the poor hygiene of the people sharing their workspace was their main cause for concern. One in ten people found their teammates’ lunch offensive.
Our study, which was undertaken to find out the main stumbling blocks to getting the nation back into empty offices and city centres, also found Covid-19 to be a large concern with a whopping (26%) of respondents, despite the excellent progress of the vaccination programme in the UK.
A third of the people we surveyed haven’t been back to their office since the start of the first lockdown in March 2020, so it will be a big culture shift as companies do tentatively welcome their employees back.
As a nation we’ve got used to homeworking over the past year, and sharing a space with others it seems, is weighing on our minds as we ease our way out of lockdown and back to normality. Where most are looking forward to being sociable in pubs, restaurants and seeing family, mixing with others in the workplace doesn’t seem to hold quite the same appeal.
We’ve seen a huge increase in enquiries for air sanitisation units as employers look to reassure workers of the safety of the workplace.
Annoying colleagues is unfortunately something none of us will have any control over, but where Airdri can reassure both bosses and their employees is through controlling the spread of germs and illness. Our SteraSpace units can eliminate up to 98% of micro-organisms in the air and on surfaces and can be easily installed into any office. And if like some of the people we surveyed you are dreading the smell of your teammate’s lunch, SteraSpace can also rid the office of foul odours too.
Find out more about our ground-breaking range of SteraSpace air and surface sanitiser units here: https://airdri.com/steraspace-sanitisers/how-to-choose-a-steraspace-unit-for-your-premises/