A total of 2,318 employed adults was surveyed online by Harris Interactive for Randstad's monthly Job Bites survey on workplace etiquette. Throughout 2006, Randstad is commissioning a monthly survey on relevant and provocative workplace trends.
"Randstad's workplace etiquette survey shows that American employees are disciplined in their jobs, skipping lunch breaks and working longer hours that cut into the weekend," said Genia Spencer, Managing Director of Operations and Human Resources for Randstad USA. "Employees are focusing on productivity, and they are looking to their colleagues and employers to limit excessive distractions."
In addition to disruptive behaviors, off-color language is unacceptable in the workplace. According to the Randstad survey, a staggering 91 percent of employed adults do not think profanity is acceptable in the workplace.
Other interesting Randstad Job Bites findings include the following:
Personal Work Habits:
- Nearly two in five employed U.S. adults (38 percent) indicated they do
not usually take a lunch break.
- One-third (33 percent) state they work overtime without additional
compensation.
- 31 percent work on Sundays.
- 91 percent say they do not call in sick when they're not really sick.
- 91 percent do not think profanity is acceptable in the workplace.
Top Pet Peeves:
- 44 percent noted condescending tones as one of their biggest pet peeves
at work.
- 37 percent cited public reprimands as a big pet peeve.
- 34 percent selected micromanaging as one of their biggest pet peeves.
- Nearly one-third (32 percent) rated loud talkers as one of their
biggest pet peeves.
- 30 percent listed cell phones ringing at work as one of their greatest
annoyances.
- 22 percent cite the use of speakerphones in public areas as one of
their biggest complaints.
- 11 percent find it annoying when colleagues engage in personal
conversations in the workplace.
- Nine percent find the use of PDAs during meetings to be offensive.
Survey Methodology
Harris Interactive fielded the study on behalf of Randstad USA from February 17-21 via its QuickQuery online omnibus, interviewing a nationwide sample of 2,318 U.S. adults aged 18 and over, among whom 1,444 were employed. Data were weighted to reflect the total U.S. adult population on the basis of region, age within gender, education, household income, race/ethnicity, and propensity to be online. In theory, with a probability sample of this size, one can say with 95 percent certainty that the overall results have a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and the employee results have a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. This online sample is not a probability sample.
