He’ll eff and blind that he told you so, but it seems chef Gordon Ramsay is right to encourage bad language in his kitchen.

Swearing at work can improve productivity and boost staff morale, experts have found.

Regular use of expletives helps relieve stress and build team spirit, they said. And employees who turn the office air blue can also express themselves more clearly.

But mouthing off in the presence of customers, clients or senior staff is still not recommended – even if they are annoying.

The study looked at the use of four-letter words and swearing in the workplace from a management point of view. It followed workers at a mail-order warehouse and used focus groups to monitor staff.

The relevance and importance of using bad language at work was pinpointed and found to have a potentially positive effect.

Regular use of profanity helped ‘reinforce solidarity’ among staff, enabling them to express their feelings and develop relationships. It also relieved stress.

Women were found to swear more than expected, especially among other women, and senior staff were less likely to curse.

Prof Yehuda Baruch, of the Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia, said the aim of the study was to challenge leadership styles.

He said: ‘The primary issue for management is whether or not to apply a tolerant leadership culture to the workplace and deliberately allow swearing. Banning it could backfire.’

But Prof Baruch warned that abusive swearing should be eliminated if it added to stress.

‘The challenge is to master the art of knowing when to turn a blind eye,’ he added.