With more of us working remotely than ever before, Premier Inn has surveyed over 1,000 working professionals to reveal the most endearing (and frustrating) behaviours displayed by colleagues while working from home.  

The survey revealed that many workers have actually found their colleagues more endearing since the move away from the office, with three quarters (75%) of workers reporting that their colleagues showed endearing behaviours at least once a week. 

Top 10 most endearing remote working behaviours 

When it comes to the most endearing behaviours shown while remote working, messaging to ask how you are topped the list, with 64% of workers agreeing that this behaviour would cause them to warm to colleagues.  

Replying to messages quickly (62%), giving full attention during a video call (61%), having daily catch ups (55%) and sharing weekend plans (54%) were all also included in the top five most endearing behaviours, with colleagues clearly being appreciated for trying to emulate ‘water cooler’ conversations while communicating virtually.  

The survey revealed that only 9% of workers find colleagues more annoying while working remotely, with over half (53%) finding colleagues less irritating away from the office. Over a third of workers (38%) reported that their colleagues were just as annoying working remotely as they were when working in an office. 

Top 10 most annoying behaviours colleagues do while working remotely 

Overall, over half (51%) of workers surveyed revealed that their colleagues displayed annoying behaviours at least two to three times a week.  

When working remotely, the most annoying remote working behaviour was reported to be slow responses to email (when the colleague is online and working), with 61% of workers finding this particular behaviour tiresome. Following this were behaviours including: background noise on video calls (60%), eating on camera (59%), too many video calls (56%), and muting and un-muting in the wrong places (53%). 

As the lines between work and home have blurred since working remotely, 52% of workers reported finding direct messaging out of work hours particularly annoying, and 51% reported answering the phone or working on something else whilst on a video call specifically irritating.