2 min

The vast majority of generation Z and millennials say they prefer to work in an office garden, despite the accompanying distractions. This figure is 55 per cent and 56 per cent, respectively, in a Future Workplace study commissioned by UC and collaboration specialist Poly.

According to Poly, the new merged company of Polycom and Plantronics, the two latest generations indicate that they are more productive in busy environments. They also tend to cooperate more than other generations. Incidentally, people of all ages like to work in the office, but preferably without noisy colleagues.

Distractions

Office gardens are full of distractions. Of the employees surveyed, 99 percent indicated in the survey that they were distracted at their individual workplace. Harsh talkers are the biggest distraction. For example, 76 per cent give a colleague who speaks loudly on the phone the biggest distraction. In addition, 65% mention colleagues who speak too loudly in the neighbourhood.

Those distractions have a lot of consequences. Of the respondents in the poly study, 51 percent said that these distractions make it difficult to understand telephone conversations properly or to be heard clearly. In addition, according to 48 percent of the respondents, it affects concentration. In addition, 93 percent regularly get frustrated during a phone or video call.

However, many employees like to work in an office garden, but the younger they are, the bigger the preference. Only 38 percent of the baby boomers like to work in an office garden. From generation X, that’s 48 percent. In addition, 60 percent of the baby boomers say they are the most productive when it’s quiet, while 52 percent of Generation Z say they are more productive when it’s busy in the office or when they talk to others.

Preventing distraction

Of course, distractions can also be avoided, for example by putting on headphones. Just over a third, 35 percent, of generation Z do this, compared to 16 percent of the baby boomers. Also, 40 percent of the two youngest generations sometimes sit in a more comfortable place – for example a sofa – to work. More than half of the baby boomers work alone at their main workplace.

According to the survey, nearly three in four people are willing to work more often in the office if employers would do more to reduce distractions.

This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.