Appel-Meulenbroek and colleagues collected information from workers born into different generations to learn more about perceived workplace design-related needs and preferences. The variations they identified were present at the time that their research was conducted and may or may not persist as members of various generations age. The investigators defined Baby Boomers as born from 1946 – 1964, members of Generation X as being born from 1965 – 1979, and Millennials as born 1980 – 1998. Data were obtained from hundreds of Dutch office employees who are members of one of the three generations noted.
The researchers determined that, “Millennials indicated the physical workplace aspects accessibility of colleagues and informal work areas/break-out zones to be significantly more important than generation X did…Millennials perceived the ability to personalise their workstation to be a more important support for a work-life balance than generation X…Companies that specifically want to satisfy their Millennials could thus pay special attention to informal work areas and break- out zones, accessibility of colleagues and the ability to personalise a workstation…Based on the analyses and the interpretation of the results, it can be concluded that there are differences between generations regarding their needs and their preferences for physical workplace aspects. However, those differences between generations are rather small.”
Appel-Meulenbroek, S. Vosters, A. Kemperman, and T. Arentze. 2019. “Workplace Needs and Their Support: Are Millennials Different from Other Generations?” Twenty-Fifth Annual Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Conference, Melbourne, Australia.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.