Almost one in six Milton Keynes workers moan on Twitter about their colleagues, study reveals

Research into Twitter has shown that more than 17% of workers in Milton Keynes have posted moans about their colleagues.

The study, carried out by office printer company Brother UK, set out to discover the places in the UK that love – or hate - their colleagues the most.

MK came out in the top 10 for places for its happy workforce, but one in six dissatisfied people are still tweeting about their toxic teammates.

This compares to a whopping 30.27% of moaners in Southend-on-Sea, which showed the highest amount of workers’ complaints. Second highest was Telford with 30.06%.

The lowest number of tweeted moans came in nearby Northampton, where only 17.6% were complaints about colleagues.

Brother UK collated 1.3 million tweets and used the ‘Hugging Face’ sentiment analysis AI tool to find out whether posts about colleagues were positive or negative. They then grouped the posts by location to see which areas have high proportions of negative sentiment towards co-workers.

A spokesman for the company said: “While businesses strive harder than ever before to hire people that fit their company culture, new colleagues can still disrupt team dynamics with their behaviour.

"In more severe cases, a co-worker’s toxic behaviour can shatter morale, hamper productivity and intensify conflicts in the workplace. It can make life very difficult for colleagues who work with these people, as they are unable to control who they work with.

But it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly why a colleague is toxic… For this reason, Brother UK has created a a guide to six types of difficult co-workers and how to deal with them.

“Whether it’s an office gossip who spreads rumours about colleagues or a manipulative bully who alienates everyone in their path, the guide is full of useful advice to help,” said the spokesman.

Early this year, Santander UK, which employs over 3,000 people in Milton Keynes, was judged as one of the best places to work in Britain by the Top Employers Institute.

The company won praise for its “exceptional HR policies and people practices”.