Breaking it down by generations, Gen Z had the highest attendance in the office full-time, at 22 per cent, but only 11 per cent of them said that this was their ideal working arrangement.
For mid-career Millennials in their 30s, 16 per cent attended the office full-time, and for those over 60, only 15 per cent attended the office full-time, lining up with the exact percentage who said they wanted to be there.
What this shows is that different generations have different experiences with WFH. The older you are, the more ability you have for your expectations of how you like to work to match your reality, while younger workers are experiencing the most dissonance between what they want, and what they get.
Most Gen Z don’t really want to be in the office full-time, yet given their junior status they are the most likely to be required to attend.
Now I can already hear the chorus of people saying that young workers really should be spending more of their time in the office to soak up knowledge and learn how to do their jobs better. After all, that’s the only way they’re going to progress and get promotions, right?
Well, according to smart minds like Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom who has reviewed much of the available data, those who work from home two days a week, regardless of age, are just as likely to get promoted as their fully in-office colleagues.
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Another recent review of the 2024 Australian Workplace Index employment data published in The Conversation found no significant difference in productivity between employees who worked from home some days a week, and those in the office.
In fact, it showed numerous benefits, like increased autonomy (which led to higher productivity), less burnout and an average saving of 100 minutes a day in commuting time.
All of us are now dealing with an increasing speed of change, trying to adapt as new policies and technologies are shifting the way that we work. Yes, there is likely to be a correlation between your age and what you think about WFH but all of us can still embrace hybrid working to help make us work better, no matter how young or old we are.
