A third of workers admit to daydreaming about sex during office meetings; research by YouGov reveals.
The survey of 1,980 employees was conducted on behalf of online meetings company WebEx Communications to mark National Meetings Week taking place between 4 – 8 October.
Men were found to be three times more likely than women to dream about sex while employees classed as ‘professionals’ were found to top the charts for spending most time in meetings. Twenty-three per cent meet more than 10 times a month.
While sex is at the forefront of a third of workers’ minds, employees in the education sector were found to be more focused on food. Almost half (44%) of all educational workers daydream about what they will eat for their next meal.
Younger respondents were shown to daydream about finances much more so then older colleagues with 42% of 18-30 year olds daydreaming about bills and money compared with only 26% of people aged 30 and above.
Southerners were found to have the worst attention span of all UK office workers. Only 17% said they can participate in an hour long meeting and not daydream.
Tony Gasson of WebEx said: “It’s alarming to find out that so many people are daydreaming in work meetings. Our research exposes the fact that UK workers are quite easily distracted in meetings. People really need to think about why they are meeting.
“It’s often the case that people meet face-to-face out of habit when all they really need to do is put their heads together and move work forward. If people are engaging in an environment that they are comfortable in, like their own desk in the office, they are much more likely to be productive.”
Scottish office workers have the largest amount of meeting agnostic workers – 40% said they never take part in meetings.
The research supports findings from the Economic and Social Counsil looking at the UK’s Productivity Gap which shows that Britain lags behind the US, France and Germany in productivity per worker by 39%, 22% and 19% respectively.
