Coming across co-workers getting intimate, an emotional heart-to-heart between colleagues, and disciplinaries and dismissals are some of the awkward or embarrassing situations a third of office workers have come across.
The research, conducted by Kit Out My Office, found a third of office workers in the UK have walked in on a potentially embarrassing situation at work.
One in twelve said they had come across an intimate rendezvous, a quarter said they'd walked into some receiving disciplinary action or worse, a dismissal, and a fifth said they'd witnessed two colleagues having a heart-to-heart chat, often accompanied by a few tears.
The majority confessed they came across these situations by accidentally walking into the wrong room (58%), or getting the meeting time wrong (41%). All those who had gone to the wrong room were then asked if their board and meeting rooms were named, to which three quarters (76%) stated that the meeting rooms/areas in their workplace did not have names.
Gareth Jones, digital marketing manager at Kit Out My Office, said: “Naming meeting rooms is normally an afterthought; but one that requires more consideration than you might think. Strangely, there can be quite a lot of pressure to think of a witty, relevant or unique category of names for your meeting rooms – and it’s a task usually left at the bottom of the pile. If a business is busy, it might never happen. Although it seems frivolous and unimportant, clearly anonymous meeting rooms are the cause for a lot of workplace embarrassment.
“It’s important to have fun with it and not take it too seriously; there is definitely such a thing as overthinking the issue! It’s not just big brands, such as Facebook, who can have fun with their names. Pick a category that reflects on the business and its brand personality; something funny and flippant, serious or inspiring. If businesses are struggling to think of them, we’re hoping that they will use our generator widget to help them out and prevent all these blushes! From HR meetings through to sneaky affairs, these moments are best left uninterrupted!”
