Paperstone – Office life, work and fun

Office Research Round-Up

By Paperstone on July 18, 2009 in Office Machines & Supplies, Office Workers

Data insecurity

Samsung claims from a poll of 4,500 European office workers an alarming lack of security awareness among UK workers when printing documents.

Just under half of all employees are regularly exposed to sensitive data, such as salary details and CVs, abandoned on a printer. Workers in UK organisations such as banks and financial institutions which deal with a large number saw the most incidences of data exposure, with 40 per cent claiming to have seen sensitive documents on the print tray.

UK office workers happy to use work email for personal affairs.

According to the research by email security firm Proofpoint, a third of UK office workers have used their work email to apply for another job, a quarter have dumped their partner with a work email and 32 percent admitted to sending “saucy” messages using their company’s email address.

Female flesh upsets male South Korean office workers

A CareerNet poll of South Korean office workers has found that 74 percent of men felt upset with the way their female colleagues dressed at work. Fifty-six percent identified micro-miniskirts as a chief offender, with 51 percent citing excessive cleavage.

Among female office workers the main complaint was of stained shirts and ties worn by their male colleagues.

Workplace attire in South Korea is relatively conservative, with most men wearing suits and ties.

Personality helps determine job

An Australian study by researchers at the University of Western Sydney suggests that often, personality traits, rather than education or socioeconomic background, played a bigger role in determining what job people ended up with. The survey looked at the prevalence of five characteristics – openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability – in different occupations.

Office workers were among the least conscientious, but had high levels of emotional stability. Clerical workers were the most conscientious, but also the least open to change. Salespeople were the most extroverted and agreeable. People in managerial roles tended to be more open to experience and more conscientious but less agreeable.

“Facebook affects productivity” shocker

Boston-based Nucleus Research have made the shock discovery that companies lose productivity to Facebook. Almost two-thirds of those with access to Facebook visit the social networking site during working hours and spend an average of 15 minutes on it each day. Nucleus calculated that employers lose the equivalent of 1.5 workers for every 100 in terms of productivity. The study didn’t cover, however, the effect that blocking the site would have on worker well-being and in turn that effect on productivity.

Not so green workers

Research among white-collar workers has found that they are far more conscientious about energy consumption in the home than they are in the workplace – this, despite a 2007 separate MORI Ipsos poll which showed that 81 percent of employees prefer working in a company with a good reputation for environmental responsibility. Nine out of ten make more effort to reduce energy consumption at home than they do in the office, according to the study commissioned by EDF Energy. More than half (55 percent) admit to making no effort in the workplace.

Top offences included leaving lights and air conditioning on and not shutting down office machines.

Women spend more time with PC than with other half

A Harris Interactive poll of 2,600 US adults shows women office workers spend nearly triple the amount of time with their computer as they do with their partners. However, considering the amount of time US workers spend on computers at work, this finding is somewhat pedestrian.

British weather is better on weekdays than at the weekend – office workers not taking advantage

Analysis of Met Office statistics for the last five summers in mainland Britain has revealed there is more sun on Mondays and Tuesdays than over the weekend. At the same time office workers are selling themselves short in terms of taking breaks.

During the months of June, July and August between 2004 and 2008, the average temperature on Mondays and Tuesdays peaked at 22.58°C with an average of 5.67 sunshine hours, while peak temperatures over the weekend were 21.13°C with an average of 5.45 sunshine hours.

According to the research commissioned by doughnut makers Krispy Kreme UK, British office workers now take an average total of just 40 minutes in breaks per day, which means they are ‘donating’ an average of 10 days back to their employers in untaken breaks.

Thieving Brits

Not for the first time, the kleptomaniac side to British workers have been revealed. A uSwitch.com poll suggested that one million adults in the UK would admit to nicking toilet rolls and nine million swipe office supplies from the stationery cupboard.

And finally…

IT workers make the best lovers, according to research commissioned by PS3PriceCompare.co.uk. Their poll of 2,000 British man and women found that techies were most sensitive to their partners’ desires and the most adventurous. They also scored highly in terms of frequency of sex. Office workers in general scored well.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, those working in the fitness industry fared the worst. They were found to be the least likely to use sex toys (the index of sexual adventurousness here) and were the most “selfish” lovers, with a low 41 percent of these workers considering their partner’s needs above their own (compared with 82 percent among IT workers).

Subscribe

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe now to receive more just like it.

Comments are closed.

Top