Quirky office furniture found to annoy office staff Table football, ping pong and hammocks are no substitute for job security or work satisfaction and actually annoy many staff, […]

Table football, ping pong and hammocks are no substitute for job security or work satisfaction and actually annoy many staff, a leading academic has warned.

A new study by the storage and removals firm Kiwi Movers suggests a backlash against quirky office furniture, with a quarter of staff finding them annoying and only 14 per cent liking them.

“Happy workplaces don’t need beanbags, barbecue stations and ball pits,” said Manchester University psychology professor Cary Cooper, who was involved in the research.

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“In their attempts to be seen as fun, happy places to work, modern businesses are venturing very close to turning their offices into circuses in order to improve perceptions to potential hires and journalists,” Professor Cooper wrote on The Conversation research website.

You can’t Instagram job security

Workplace contentment is too often incorrectly attributed to the aesthetics of the office, disregarding more influential factors such as job security or work satisfaction. But since we can’t Instagram job security, it’s the offices that wrongly get the credit when a company that happens to have a swanky building wins a staff satisfaction award, he says.

Kiwi Movers decided to conduct a survey into office furniture after seeing an increase in “non-essential” furniture being put into storage.”Happy workplaces don’t need beanbags, barbecue stations and ball pits” Cary Cooper

Instead, what many employees in openspace offices really crave is a screen to give them a bit more privacy. Nearly three-quarters of the 1,000 workers surveyed in a related study said the feeling that others can see what they’re working on causes them some degree of anxiety.

They also appreciated comfortable, good quality furniture and free food and coffee.

The study, conducted by London commercial storage firm Kiwi Movers, who’ve noted a recent increase in mothballed office accessories, revealed: 1 in 4 find office toys annoying 79% said reliable and modern technology was more important to them than office aesthetics Bales of hay and a throne in reception listed among most pointless office accessories Occupational health expert Professor Sir Cary Cooper believes businesses focus on the wrong things and confuse ‘perks’ for culture

MOST AND LEAST POPULAR OFFICE PERKS

The most popular office perks are those offer an immediate tangible benefit to the employee, but even so, as many as 23% don’t take advantage every day. Younger workers were more likely on average to take advantage of ‘environmental’ perks like chill out areas and recreational equipment.

71% overall said they’d like more space in their office and of those, 58% believe that could be achieved by removing non-essential items. The survey revealed which items people in the office used most regularly, and the percentage of employees surveyed who said that they made use of the perks:

Free coffee – 77%

Drinks fridge – 41%

Free breakfast – 34%

On-site gym – 22%

Break-out spaces – 19%

Chill-out areas/relaxing furniture – 11%

Office toys (table football, ping pong, arcade games etc) – 4%

MOST BIZARRE AND POINTLESS OFFICE FEATURES

Study participants were invited to list the unusual features in their current or previous offices that they found offered no value. Among the most unusual were:

Hay bales for sitting on instead of chairs

Fake grass in meeting rooms

Deck chairs and sun loungers

An indoor picnic table with a parasol

Motivational quotes on walls

Music themed meeting rooms with song lyrics on the wall

A throne in reception that nobody sat on

Beach huts