Female colleagues are twice more likely to be involved in back-bitting than male colleagues, a new survey has found.
During an online survey of 2,000 people, two of five women accepted having sent nasty messages about their co-workers in the past seven days compared to one in five men.
A typical female employee spends around 20 minutes a day moaning about someone they work with, either by email or by messaging.
Overall, the survey found, one in every five employees dislike their colleagues.
It also noted that almost two-thirds of the workers gossip about their colleagues when they are not around and the back-stabbing continues even when they are away from the office.
Twenty five per cent of those surveyed admitted they moan about their colleagues even after work, the Daily Mail reported.
"Workers are spending longer and longer in each other's company as workloads increase. That leads to added tension," said a spokesman for OnePoll -- an online market research company that carried out the survey.
While women's disliked their colleagues because they were 'jealous' or 'saw them as a threat', men envied their co-worker for 'laziness' or for having 'ideas above their station'.
The researchers also found that bosses were the major cause of tension at the workplace, while senior management emerged as the least-liked group of all. "People who are in positions of authority are bound to end up as victims of back-stabbing," the spokesman said.
Back-stabbing was most prominent in media-industry followed by accounts, IT and sales.
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