Noise that costs business £139bn

DERDDLE dur, derddle dur,' shrills the mobile phone. 'Ping' goes the incoming email. 'Did you see Corrie last night?' asks the colleague. 'Whir, whir, clackety-clack,' groan the fax and printer in unison.

Unbelievably, those annoying distractions which are part of everyday life in the office, cost British business an estimated £139bn a year - or so research commissioned by Brother, the supplier of technology to help people work from home, claims today.

It suggests that office workers can lose up to two hours each working day - the equivalent of 45 days a year - because of broken concentration. Or to put a price on that lost concentration, that is the equivalent of £4,903 per employee each year.

The survey of 1,800 home and office workers found that almost two-thirds (64%) of office workers reckoned they were interrupted up to 20 times per day and 18% complained that they were distracted more than 20 times, adding up to a staggering two to four hours each day. The worst offenders are high-volume, vocal colleagues.

One quarter of the respondents rated mobile phone ring tones as the most distracting while 6% claimed it was the noise generated when emails arrived on their computers.

Psychologist David Lewis said: 'Certain noises distract different people - it can take up to four times as long as the interruption itself to return to the task in hand.'