1-in-8 workers who participate in virtual meetings have said they have gone to the toilet during a call, according to a new poll.
Research and polling firm YouGov conducted a study asking workers who attend video meetings whether they have “ever taken the device you are having the meeting on to the toilet with you and used the toilet while still attending the meeting?” 12 percent of workers responded yes, including 21 percent of 18-29-year-olds, the largest group by age.
Matthew Smith, Head of Data Journalism at YouGov, annotated the findings:
As many as one in eight (12 percent) who ever take part in virtual meetings for work say they have gone to the toilet during the meeting. And we don’t mean left their device behind while they exited the room to use the toilet – we mean brought their device with them to the toilet.”
Men and women were generally as bad as each other, with 12 percent of men and 11 percent of women saying they had used the bathroom mid-call.
Clearly, it’s a divisive issue. Over four-fifths of respondents say using the toilet during a virtual meeting is unacceptable (83 percent), including 64 percent who deem it “completely” unacceptable. 15 percent of respondents say it is either “completely” or “somewhat” acceptable to do so.
A wry extra detail that YouGov added was that almost half of those who have used the toilet during meetings still considered it unacceptable behaviour (43 percent) — suggesting that when you’ve got to, you’ve really got to go, even if you’re ashamed to do so.
YouGov’s poll was inspired by the news story that possible US presidential candidate for the Republicans, Vivek Ramaswamy, went to the toilet during a live broadcast on X.
Notable Hybrid Work Research from 2023
2023 featured several studies about hybrid and remote work that were less facetious than YouGov’s recent research.
In September, a study by insurance broking and risk management firm Gallagher recorded that the majority of UK businesses are reducing their office space post-pandemic following the rise of hybrid working.
Gallagher found that 63 percent are now changing office space due to changes in ways of working. That figure comprises over a fifth of businesses planning on moving to smaller offices (21 percent), over one-third considering moving to shared office space, and seven percent of businesses having already shifted office space.
The scale of the post-pandemic shift in working is captured by over two-thirds of UK businesses having introduced hybrid working because of employee demand for greater working flexibility (69 percent). Furthermore, three-fifths of business leaders said they wished they to a hybrid model pre-pandemic because it’s been such a success, while three-quarters said employees have improved their efficiency.
While Gallagher’s study suggests the permanence of hybrid working long-term, October saw two other pieces of research published which challenged that idea.
A study by recruitment business Hays canvassed almost 15,000 professionals and employers and found that more professionals are working exclusively in the office than working by a hybrid model. It found that over two-fifths of workers now work exclusively in the office (43 percent) while narrowly under two-fifths abide by a hybrid model (39 percent).
Among Hays’s other research was that over three-fifths of employers still offer hybrid working (61 percent), but almost a quarter expect to change their hybrid working policies to mandate employees to return to the office within a year (24 percent) — either exclusively or with reduced allocation for WFH days.
Additionally, KPMG’s CEO Outlook survey for 2023 indicated that almost two-thirds of CEOs want to kill hybrid work within three years.
The survey, which canvassed 1,325 CEOs of businesses with revenues over $500 million, found that 64 percent of CEOs are planning on a return to the pre-pandemic, fully on-premises way of working within the next three years. 87 percent of CEOs intend to fulfil this ambition by associating financial incentives and promotion opportunities with on-premises attendance.
“This sentiment underscores the persistence of traditional office-centric thinking among CEOs,” KPMG’s report wrote. “It comes against a backdrop of the debate surrounding hybrid working, which has had a largely positive impact on productivity over the past three years and has strong employee support, particularly among the younger generation of workers.”
