Employees younger than 26 felt the least productive and supported working from home compared to other age brackets. (Photo: shironosov)

Conventional wisdom would seem to have it that employees 25 years and younger would have an easier time staying engaged during the enforced separation mandated by COVID-19 concerns. After all, a generation having grown up with smartphones and tablets would obviously be the best-prepared to handle the trials and tribulations of remote work.

According to a new study, however, the kids aren't alright.

Related: How to manage employee burnout in the remote era

Perceptyx, an employee survey and people analytics platform, surveyed over 500,000 employees from more than 100 enterprises worldwide and discovered that employees younger than 26 felt the least productive and supported working from home compared to other age brackets. Contrary to expectation, employees 46-55 years old scored highest on feeling they could take sick days without fear of negative consequences and having the resources to do their jobs effectively while working remotely. Employees 55 and over scored highest on feeling a sense of personal accomplishment in their work and confidence in their remote work environments enabling them to work productively. That age bracket also felt that their companies' responses to COVID-19 minimized stress for employees.

Employees under 26 —or "digital natives" as the study refers to them —scored the lowest on all those questions.

One young employee commented, "I do not feel as productive at my home as I do when I am in the office. It is now difficult to separate my personal life and my work because I have to work in my bedroom. There is not a place for me to go to unwind after a long day 'at the office.'"

Another stated, "My main issue is the lack of workspace while working at home. This does not seem to be something that can easily be resolved without being onsite."

Perceptyx suggests that perhaps this shouldn't be much of a surprise. "As the newest members of the workforce,"  the study says, "this group has yet to forge strong relationships or prove themselves within an organization, leading to a distrust among 1 in 5 employees that their organization will not do all it can to support their job security." One such employee commented, "I have anxiety and fear of not being able to deliver the demands at a distance…and suffer termination."

Caretaking concerns were most paramount among employees 26-45 years old, compared to the other age groups. "I need tips on how to manage having my child home and trying to work on her virtual schooling and being able to help her when she needs help," one respondent said.

The study also discovered that there is employee support across the board for a mixed working experience (spending some days at a physical office and other days working from home), particularly among those with caretaking responsibilities. Perceptyx suggests that taking that interest into consideration may help ease the transition back to the workplace once restrictions are lifted.

Perceptyx also recommends frequent conversations with younger employees during this time to help defuse stress and facilitate problems solving.

For more statistics and tips, click here to download the full free report.

Related: 

• 3 tips to help employees overcome burnout and achieve work-life balance
• Business continuity & social distancing: 3 tips for transitioning to a work-from-home model
• Managers need a crash-course in work-from-home skills