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Whispers by the water cooler, a quick gossip as the kettle boils or a raised eyebrow in a meeting: we’ve all experienced office politics at work.

Our colleagues, the people we often spend more time with than our own friends and family, can become our closest allies, where discreet chats about the accounts department being late for work again underpin our daily work routine.

Disclosure and Barring Service check provider uCheck wanted to delve deeper into the office politics of business sectors across the UK, to find out which industry harboured the highest levels of hushed conversations. They also wanted to see how people felt about office politics: is it something to avoid at all costs or a tactic to help you get ahead at work?

The survey of 1,500 people firstly asked if people felt office politics existed in their workplace. The results found the civil service had the highest rate of office politics (78%, according to employees in that sector), followed by advertising (77%) and engineering (also 77%).

According to the survey, it’s the legal sector that has the lowest levels of office politics (57%), followed by tourism (60%) and the retail sector (62%).

So, should civil service workers be avoiding the water cooler or making an active beeline for it? Workers were asked by uCheck if they thought joining in with office politics would help them gain promotions and, surprisingly, over a third answered yes. Interestingly, however, when broken down by gender, the survey found the majority of workers holding this view were men (72%).

Similarly, nearly a third of respondents felt office politics can be a positive phenomenon in the workplace – 59% holding this view were, again, men. Furthermore, almost half of workers felt getting involved in office politics was unavoidable; however, when separated by gender, it was pretty close – 48% of women believing they could avoid office politics if they wanted to, compared to 52% of men.

Leading psychologist Robert Stewart says: “People have a natural tendency to want to find their position within a group One expert warns that becoming known for speaking badly of colleagues can inflict long-term damage on one’s reputation. or tribe, so office politics becomes an inherent part of the work environment.

“People can often feel that if colleagues are engaging in talk around others, they can become the object of the topic unless they become complicit. Thus to be part of the in-group, they feel it a necessity to become involved.

“Whilst one would hope that a mutual respect would exist between all colleagues working under the same roof, we are human and possess a number of biases and judgements regarding others. Equality within the workplace is a key part of well-being and strongly correlated with high states of satisfaction and subsequent productivity. However, when we perceive an injustice, office politics and comments on others becomes inevitable, regardless of whether we have the full picture or not.

“Many are also cognizant of the fact that progression at work isn’t purely correlated with competence; for many, work is still a social club with the most popular players progressing the fastest. Because of this, it’s likely that the perception of engaging in office politics could assist one in their career.

“However, this should be considered very carefully, for whatever words are spoken explicitly, many more judgements are made by others implicitly and reputations can be impacted. Once you are known for speaking badly of others, it can become very difficult to rebuild your reputation. A few poorly chosen words can last a career.”