Employers always try to balance two things – productivity and employee satisfaction. It is a difficult balance to strike and there are varying opinions on how to achieve it.
The open office approach to productivity has been debunked right and left, so it’s no surprise that the majority of respondents in a CivicScience survey of over 2,000 respondents believe a company is more productive in a traditional office (50%).
Overall, women tend to feel more strongly about the traditional office being the more productive environment for a company. When it comes to how their environment impacts their individual productivity, 53% of women favored the traditional office while men were more mixed (49%).
The truth about the home office
Giving employees the option to work remotely has been seen as flexible, understanding, good for the environment, and a huge cost saver at times. Eighty-five percent of working adults said they would take advantage of a work-from-home policy if it was offered to them.
But of the people who do have the option to work from home, 63% say they are more productive when they are in the office. So we can see that while people love the idea of working from home they also admit to getting more done at their desks.
Parents are happy people
Back to employee satisfaction. Parents, like the majority of people, said they are more productive in the office. PTO events, sick kids, snow days, and more can pull moms and dads outside of the office during core working hours, so sometimes they don’t have a choice.
Is age a factor?
Finally, the perception you have been waiting to confirm: do younger generations want to work from home more than older generations? The answer is yes, no surprises. But the 45+ age range is showing a fairly strong presence in the group that would sometimes work from home, if given the option. Could that be increasing over time? That is a trend for us to watch.
