A recent report by the workspace provider Regus has identified the biggest causes of UK professionals’ delays and distractions at work. Of the 3000 professionals asked about interruptions to their working day, over a third (39 percent) identified traffic jams as a productivity killer. In fact, travel-related grievances feature heavily in the results; transport delays (27 percent), and road works (20 percent) were also shown to be prohibitive to productivity.
Other prominent distractions include lengthy meetings and dealing with incoming cold calls, both of which were highlighted by roughly a third of respondents (35 percent and 27 percent respectively). For many, working from home is not the answer. When it comes to finding a productive environment to work outside of the main office less than half (43 percent) suggest that being at home enables them to concentrate. However, this rises to 65 percent for the lucky few who are able to invest in a professional home office. Cafés, with their associated issues of lack of privacy, unreliable internet connection, and background noise, also score poorly at just 9 percent.
Richard Morris, UK CEO, Regus comments: “Having the option to work from different locations can be enormously beneficial for many professionals – not least by helping them to avoid arduous commutes. However, the challenge is in finding the right environment outside of the office to allow people to remain just as, if not more, productive.
“For those without a purpose-built home office, business centres, with their professional, productive working environments, provide an answer. Not only can workers save time by choosing a location closer to home, many also find that being away from the main office means they are less interrupted by colleagues looking to have impromptu updates and meetings. Business centres allow busy workers the peace and functionality they need, when they need it.”
Barry Paschali, Director of Energy and Environment Consultancy Paschali and a Regus customer said: “I’ve been a Regus customer for several years and find the business centre location the most productive for my company. I’m one of those people who needs a work/home divide – it’s easy to get distracted at home – so working from my local Regus centre suits my personality. The Regus set-up also caters to the needs of the business as we have the flexibility take on more space as the company grows and the peace of mind that all the extra facilities such as wi-fi, meetings rooms, refreshments, photocopying etc are all taken care of.”
