Eating together is one of our most sociable activities and occasions, but according to new research from LooseEnds, an app to help reboot your social life, those who work within the food industry tend to be the least sociable outside of work.
With 49 per cent of the hospitality industry saying that they are unhappy with how little they socialise, it seems that long and unsociable hours could be to blame, and it’s a plight shared by those within the various medical professions (43 per cent). Being too busy and too tired has a significant impact on satisfaction – an inference borne out by the remainder of the top five professions with the lowest social satisfaction:
40 per cent of HR professionals state social dissatisfaction
38 per cent of salesmen also struggled to find time for a socialising
And it seems that there’s an anomaly in the ‘social’ worker job title, with 34 per cent unhappy with their work/life balance.
At the other end of the scale, office workers (89 per cent) are the most likely to socialise outside of work, with men spending 17 per cent more time than women socialising with their co-workers. Those with the happiest lives were marketers, with 91 per cent of those within the marketing industry saying that networking as part of their job is the biggest contributing factor to being happy with their social life. In fact, 62 per cent of all of the survey respondents say they felt that socialising was essential to their careers.
Other workers with a satisfying social life
88 per cent of builders spent as much time building relationships as they did building houses
83 per cent of retail professionals were happy with their social lives
79 per cent of administrative workers say that their social lives needed no improvement
While 75 per cent of travel agents and holiday reps had such a good social life themselves they were not envious of holidaymakers sociability.
LooseEnds founder, Daniel Lewis, comments, ‘In a way, I can understand why people who work within the hospitality industry spend less time socialising; not only do they have to work the hours which most other people spend going out, but while they’re there they have to put on a friendly face!
‘Generally speaking, medical professionals aside, it seems that those with the highest and lowest paid jobs have the best social lives, leaving middle management with the lowest social satisfaction. A social media tool, such as LooseEnds could make the difference in this sector, allowing them to use their spare time to easily arrange catch ups with friends, rather than just playing voyeur.’
Further reading on socialising at work
