Fun Friday: Halloween Edition

According to CareerBuilder’s Halloween survey conducted among more than 4,000 workers, nearly one-in-five (18%) workers describe their workplace as scary.

Some workers think their workplace is scary because their bosses bear a strong resemblance to famous Halloween characters. When asked which popular characters best reflect their boss’s behavior, workers said the following:

Glenda the Good Witch, liked and respected by all - 20%

The Wolf Man, fine one minute, howling the next - 11%

The Invisible Man, never around - 10%

Casper the Friendly Ghost, eager to help, but often misunderstood - 9%

Dracula, constantly sucking the life right out of you - 6%

Wicked Witch of the West, conniving and sending out minions to do his/her dirty work - 5%

The Mummy, slow-moving and has an ancient thought process - 4%

Grim Reaper, constantly delivers bad news and inspires fear among workers - 3%

Frankenstein, green with envy - 1%

In addition to spooky bosses, when asked what the scariest part of their job was, workers reported the following fear-inducing activities:

Workload - 18%

Performance reviews - 9%

Tight deadlines - 9%

Hours worked - 8%

Their boss or supervisor - 7%

Sitting through meetings - 6%

Hm. I wonder how the Technology Department staff would describe me as a boss. I have my suspicions....

In any case, how about your workplace? Let us know.

And have a Happy Halloween.

Does Tweeting at Work Make You More Productive?

Here is one to tell your boss next time you are tweeting on Twitter or friending someone on Facebook while at work:

According to a study of 300 workers conducted by the University of Melbourne, Australia, those who surf the Internet for personal reasons during office hours are about 9% more productive than those who do not.

Brent Coker, of the University’s department of management and marketing, said "workplace Internet leisure browsing," helped to sharpened workers' concentration.

"People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration," Coker explained on the university’s website. "Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a day’s work, and as a result, increased productivity."

Among the most popular workplace browsing activities are searching for information about products, reading online news sites, playing online games and watching videos on YouTube.

[via wired.com]

Microblogging Takes Off at Work

According to this recent article by Stephen Humphries in the Christian Science Monitor, twitter-like microblogging sites are now used at the workplace as “internal-communication services allow multitasking employees to update each other via short, blog-like posts.”

“By blasting haiku-length updates to a central hub, workers can post status bulletins, share ideas, ask questions, post news, and pass along links and information. The upshot: Microblogging has the potential to facilitate collegial collaboration and help organizations collect, share, and disseminate knowledge,” writes Humphries.