Back to bad habits in the workplace

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Something for the weekend: Are you longing to return to the office? Well, think again as it may not live up to your expectations. One aspect of workplace life that many employees seem to have forgotten about during the Covid-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic lockdowns are the bad habits of some of their colleagues.

Research by online creative community Bored Panda has unveiled a list of stomach churning office practices that not only threaten employees’ health and wellbeing but also pose a serious challenge to organisations’ engagement strategies.

These anti-social practices range from sneezing on colleagues’ computers, leaving their office dog’s excrement on the office mat for others to clear up, and creating a collection of fungi-ridden coffee cups on their desks.

These findings are backed up by recent research by online printing service Instaprint, with respondents revealing that top of their list are colleagues not washing their hands after a trip to the loo, office martyrs who insist on coming into work with a cough or cold, over friendly colleagues who insist on air-kissing fellow workers and those fitness freaks who keep their dirty gym kits in the office. Of course, there’s also those who insist on loudly munching their lunch at their desks, spilling their crumbs into their keyboards. With these sort of habits is it any wonder some workers may be reluctant to return to the office.

Here at Employee Benefits, where we would never turn the other cheek to bad toilet habits and think that leaving dirty coffee cups around just blends the rules, we are glad to report that, like nuns, we would never be seen with bad habits.