One in five employees in the United States regularly attends after-work happy hours with their co-workers, which offer a fun chance to bond with one another and catch up on the latest gossip...unless something awful happens. Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder.com conducted a survey of 6,987 full-time employees to find out the hazards of turning your co-workers into your drinking buddies.
Once those drinks start to flow, what's the worst that can happen? Those surveyed admitted doing this:
--Bad mouthing a colleague: 16 percent
--Sharing a secret about a colleague: 10 percent
--Kissing a colleague: 8 percent
--Drank too much and acted unprofessionally: 8 percent
--Shared a secret about the company: 5 percent
--Singing karaoke: 4 percent
Attending happy hours may not be all it's cracked up to be. Thirteen percent admitted they only go because they feel obligated to do so. Maybe they should rethink that. While 21 percent said after-hours drinking is good for networking, fully 85 percent admitted it hadn't actually helped them get closer to someone higher up or get a better position.
Who attends after-work happy hours? Overall, 21 percent of workers go, and they attend at least once a month. Happy hours are especially popular with younger workers ages 25 to 34, while those over 55 are least likely to attend. Both men and women attend in equal numbers.
Find out which alcoholic beverage will give you the worst hangover the next morning.
