British offices named worst in the world – is yours one?

Us Brits have the ugliest and coldest offices in the world a recent survey has found.

The survey by Ipos, which looked at 17 countries, found that a range of things were to blame as to why British workers are unhappy in their work office. The poll found that one in five UK workers said that they were cold at work and 13% said that their office was ugly, over twice as high as the global average.

It also found that 61% of workers weren’t able to do anything about their work temperature, meaning that they were more unproductive as they were not comfortable whilst at work. One of the main reasons why we’re so unhappy at work could be due to the fact that we spend too much time there, with 52% never working outside of the office.

British offices are less likely to offer sport and recreation areas too and only 13% are allowed to choose their own office furniture, which makes workers feel like they aren’t important enough to have a say in how their office is designed and therefore unhappy with their surroundings. In fact, only 19% of Brits asked said that their office is attractive and a mere 22% said that their workplace was stimulating and helps them to be productive.

It’s not just the office having an effect on how UK based workers spend their day either, it seems that we are dissatisfied with our jobs in general as we socialise less with colleagues and are much more stressed than our equivalents across the globe. In fact, only 18% strongly agreed that they liked their workplace.

So what can you do about it? Well for a start, you might want to ditch an open-plan office as they have been proven to have a negative effect on comfort and concentration. You could also see if there’s any chance you can work from home occasionally or even set yourself up in a local coffee shop.

Constantly cold? You shouldn’t be forced to come into work with hundreds of layers on, talk to those around you and see who else is shivering all day before mentioning something to your boss. If you’re allowed to put things on your desk and make it a bit homelier, then do so! Chances are, you’ll be much happier at work if you’re surrounded by plants, photos of loved ones and things that remind you of life outside the office.

If you’re the boss, why not ask your workers how they would like the office to look and welcome their ideas about furniture and layout. A huge amount of workers head to bog-standard office blocks with no personality every day, so it could even be worth looking into places with cool architecture and space for workers to relax and connect with colleagues. You’ll soon have a much happier workforce!