WFH: Just one in 10 Gen Z want to be in the office full-time
Only one in ten Gen Z employees want to work in the office full-time and more than half admit they are less industrious than their parents.
According to a Times-led study into the generation, more than one in five respondents (21 per cent) of Gen Z, who are between 18 and 27 years old, spend all or most most of their working hours at home.
Meanwhile less than half (40 per cent) do a full five days in their place of work, with just 18 per cent working in a hybrid arrangement whereby they spend most of their time in the office.
The research – part of a lengthy study into the tech-savvy generation being conducted by The Times – found that despite the regularity at which respondents work from home, most would like to spend even less time in the office.
Nearly a quarter (24 per cent) want to spend most of their working hours at home, while 17 per cent conceded they would like to work from home all the time.
Dean Connelly, a founder at public relations recruiter LATTE, told Morning Wire that the pandemic has been a major factor in Generation Z staff’s different attitude to home working compared to their more senior colleagues.
“This is a whole generation that has been in the workforce and only ever known working from home or hybrid working,” he said.
With most of the workforce having joined during, after or shortly before the pandemic, white collar bosses wrestling to get staff to commit to more regular office work is being met with “significant pushback”, he added.
Blue chip UK plc firms like WPP, Lloyds and Barclays have all opted to tighten their hybrid working policies since the start of this year.
Lloyds opted to tie senior staff’s bonuses to their office attendance. And ad giant WPP, whose flagship agencies include the likes of Ogilvy and Group M, faced an especially strong staff backlash to their move to a four-day office policy. A group of ‘Concerned WPP employees’ set up a public petition that has attracted over 20,000 signatures in little over a month.
Speaking to Morning Wire, Connelly said that one of the key reasons behind younger workers’ resistance to a full five-day office week lies in a shift in mindset from attendance-oriented performance, to one more focused on outcomes.
“Pre-covid we were very much in a presenteeism type of office culture,” he said. “It was all about how early did I get into the office, how quick was my lunch break and was I the last person leaving the office,” he said.
“Gen Z has been a bit of a driving force – plus Covid – to shift people’s mindsets into a much more outcomes-focused office culture, where leaders are having to shift from having to see someone doing the work, to really looking at whether the objectives were achieved.”