The Office was first broadcast almost 12 years ago – yet it seems that David Brent-style “management speak” still has a pervasive grip on the workplace.

A survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) has revealed the 10 most infuriating office terms that workers loathe. “Going forward” takes the top gong, followed closely by “thinking outside the box”.

Such phrases are needless substitutes for ideas that can be easily and just as quickly communicated in plain English – so why are they still heard? The answer can only be that managers are…

i) trying to sound more informed, important or “businesslike” than they actually are;

ii) adding an overtly professional gloss to actually quite simple ideas, or

iii) committing the good old Brent failure of hitting workers with a smokescreen to obscure some of the more hollow – or even non-existent – aspects of company policy.

However, the research suggests that workers see through this kind of language, and are put off by it.

That’s not all they’re averse to. The ILM also found that workers are annoyed by a host of other habits expressed by their own colleagues, such as:

Coming in to work when they are ill

Gossiping

Cigarette breaks

Bringing children into work

Discussing confidential work matters

Emailing rather than talking

Poor timekeeping

The latter emerged as the Number One behavioural irritant, rankling almost two-thirds of managers surveyed. Of course, all of these tics are amplified by the intense nature of office work. Professor Cary Cooper of Lancaster University Management School commented: “The office is our first home, and then we have a place that we go to sleep and wake up to have breakfast with the kids for 20 minutes in the morning. Millions of workers spend more of their waking hours at work than they do at home.”

With that in mind, it’s unsurprising that small annoyances can develop into major problems. Managers and staffers would do well to be constantly vigilant against these bugbears and ensure they don’t become more problematic than they absolutely need to be.