These are your colleagues' most annoying work habits

What annoys you in the workplace? To your smacking neighbor who is crumbling on the keyboard, too loud phone conversations, or cliquing? When people work together for longer periods of time, irritations can become high. What behaviors bother you the most? And what can you do about it?

Top 3 irritations

According to the Washington Post, loud phone calls, the use of the hands-free function and constant complaining about the workload are in the top 3 most annoying work habits among colleagues. Other habits that frequently annoy us include: cliquing among colleagues, coming to work late, talking to oneself, talking to colleagues across workplaces, poor hygiene and smacking while eating. Recognisable? Definitely.

Disadvantages and anxiety

These “annoying habits” also appear to be detrimental to employee productivity. The 'annoyed' person often says nothing to his or her colleague about the irritation. He prefers to keep his irritations to himself and gets more and more concerned about them, in his head. Concentration decreases and so does the ability to work together efficiently. Why do we prefer to keep our irritations quietly bottled up? Because we are afraid of confrontation and may even be found just as “annoying” ourselves.

This is how we solve it

The solution? It varies by irritation. “Direct ventilation” often helps. Don't bottle it up, keep it light and discuss the irritation. Sometimes a practical solution helps, for example for noise pollution, through loud phone conversations or too loud “chatter”. Making agreements about behavior is wise anyway, otherwise think of an acoustic solution, such as a wall panel or telephone booth. Don't increase the irritation unnecessarily and think in terms of solutions!