51 Percent of Workers Say This Is the Best Place to Work

If you’re an employer or manager looking to boost your staff’s productivity, you might want to send your workers home.

Perhaps that sounds counterproductive, so let me explain.

A new FlexJobs survey of more than 3,000 workers asked respondents to carefully select an optimal work location based on how efficiently and effectively they’re able to work on important projects.

A mere 7 percent of workers said they’re most productive when toiling way in the office, during standard business hours. Meanwhile, more than half (51 percent) of respondents said home is the best place to work if they have a really important work task or project.

Those workers say a home office tops a traditional office environment from a productivity standpoint because there are:

• Fewer interruptions from co-workers
• Fewer distractions
• Fewer meetings
• Reduced stress from commuting
• Less office politics
• A more comfortable office environment

“It’s estimated that up to six hours a day are lost on work interruptions, wasting 28 billion hours a year,” says FlexJobs.

There is one caveat to the study — FlexJobs says it surveyed workers “interested in work flexibility,” but it did not define what that means. So the sample might not be representative of all workers.

Sara Sutton Fell, founder and CEO of FlexJobs, says in a statement:

“When the overwhelming majority of workers say that traditional office spaces are not conducive to inspiring their highest levels of productivity, something is clearly broken — certainly with the actual workplace environment, but more importantly with the corporate culture that isn’t addressing this problem. Employers who continue to blindly reinforce antiquated ways of working are going to find themselves with lower performing, less engaged, and less happy employees.”

Here are some other survey highlights:

• Respondents ranked work flexibility as the most important factor — even above salary — when evaluating a job opportunity.
• The top four reasons people seek flexibility (since 2013) are for work-life balance, family life, time savings and reducing commuting stress.

Where do you think you work best? Sound off below or on our Facebook page.