The characteristics, preferences and attitudes of millennials have been the subject of considerable research, as the world—and employers—attempt to fully understand this younger generation.
Now comes a study from the CBRE Group Inc. that suggests much of the research to date has gotten it wrong, and that, in reality, millennials have more rather than less in common with the generations that preceded them.
Entitled "Designing the office of the future? Don't plan it around (what you think you know about) U.S. millennials," the study of more than 5,500 office workers draws this succinct conclusion: "While current assumptions about millennials are driving the design of many workplaces today, there is actually little difference in workplace preferences between millennials, Generation Xers and baby boomers."
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CBRE's study found that millennials, contrary to popular profiling, aren't much more social than their older peers, at least at work, and show much the same preferences for workplace design as do the older generations.
"The results of this study clearly suggest that variety, choice, access and transparency—attributes typically associated with what millennials want—are indeed important, but not only for millennials," said Georgia Collins, CBRE's senior managing director for Workplace Strategy. "Our study actually found that most of these attributes are equally important to Generation Xers and baby boomers."
Overall, the CBRE study says, "the generational divide is more perception than reality." Among the findings:
- Millennials, GenXers and Baby Boomers are equally collaborative—"in fact, millennials actually report spending slightly more time doing individual focused work than their colleagues from other generations," the report said.
- Asked about space design, millennials ranked "space for socializing" near the bottom of their list, well behind "spaces that allow them to think and concentrate," and "spaces to meet and collaborate, and spaces for learning and training."
- When asked how they'd prefer to work in the future, millennials chose spending "more time connecting via email and more time in formal meetings—and less time on company-sponsored social networks."
"These findings suggest that instead of putting too much focus on designing the workplace around the millennials, companies would yield better results by designing a well-balanced office that will accommodate the varied needs of different job functions and different preferences of individuals, independent of their age cohort," Collins said.
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
