Top 10 workplace sins annoying your colleagues

Is your desk a tad messier than it should be? Are you prone to eating smelly lunches in the office? Or, perhaps you’re constantly ignoring your co-workers’ emails?

If so, then you could be committing some of the top workplace sins and risking your professional reputation in process. A report from Vapourcore.com pinpointed the top 10 most annoying office blunders.

Sporting bad body odour was ranked as the worst crime in the office, with 43% of employee naming it the top offender. This was followed by not answering emails and not pulling your weight when it comes to cleaning the office kitchen.

After interviewing over 1,000 employees, the study found that interrupting colleagues whilst they’re speaking was hated by 21% of workers – and sneaking off to the bathroom too much is the most annoying habit for one fifth of staff.

The top ten most annoying office habits are:

1. Offensive body odour
2. Ignoring emails
3. Not washing up
4. Messy desks
5. Interrupting when people speak
6. Staying in the toilet too long
7. Talking loudly on the phone
8. Smelling of cigarettes
9. Cooking smelly foods
10. Wearing the same clothes

As offensive body odour was deemed to be the worst, we decided to look into how the company should broach the topic.

“An employee who has a strong odour or often creates them may seem like a minor offence, but things like this should be addressed before it causes a major disturbance to others,” Shelley Passingham, branch manager for Robert Half’s OfficeTeam, told HRD.

“If a manager feels that a worker’s odour is distracting colleagues or negatively affecting their productivity, or if other employees bring it to the manager’s attention, it is a good idea to take the individual aside to discuss the matter.”