The most annoying office habits in the UK have been collected and the results are in.

According to Viking the most annoying office habit is a colleague being late, that feeling when you’ve made an effort to get to the office on time or even arrive early so you are working bang on 9am and a colleague walks in 15 minutes into the working day for the whole week. 

Among the other top 20 answers we had other time wasting exercises such as taking lots of cigarettes breaks (a subject recently covered in the Mitrefinch Blog) and taking a long time to do a task, 

Ruud Linders, marketing manager Europe at Viking, says:

“Close knit environments such as offices can be a hotbed for behavioural differences, and when you throw some of those against differing personalities you can end up with irritated colleagues. I think the key to a happy office is striking a balance between feeling comfortable and tolerating some people’s behaviour – however questionable.”

So what can be done about these time wasting practises that annoy us so much?

Is it the manager’s fault?

Not really, the line manager is probably unaware that this is even an issue and in the study only 10% of males and nearly 9% of females notified a senior member of staff while 25% of males and 22% of females talked to other colleagues about the issue. Not addressing the situation doesn’t solve the problem at all and could create deeper divisions in the workforce.

Is it the employees fault?

The late employee may not have fully realised how their actions were impacting on the business and other employees. With 35% of females and 25% of males saying they would rather not take action to avoid conflict it’s not the wider workforces fault either.

So what’s the solution?

Time and Attendance software, with a robust time management system employees clock in when they arrive and clock out when they leave there is no grey areas regarding lateness and breaks.

If lateness patterns start emerging the line manager or HR manager can spot these using our software and intervene with the tardy employee and find out why they are continuously late. It might be that they have to drop the kids at school before arriving at work at which point your company may look into being a little more flexible with that employee.

To look into how a Time and Attendance software system can help your company just get in contact with Mitrefinch here and put an end to the most annoying UK office habit.