Learning preferences affect where people want to work

Throughout the past two years, most workers had to adjust to remote work, Zoom meetings, and Slack messages. 

As working from home becomes the norm, some executives have come out in condemnation of this future of work. For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk asserted that those working from home are simply pretending to work or ‘phoning it in‘, and is now requiring all of his employees at Tesla to be in-person for at least 40 hours per week. 

Though Musk’s opinion may have once been widely accepted by pre-pandemic logic, today’s evidence suggests he is incorrect, as some may actually be more productive when working from home, according to a new survey of 600 workers in sales, marketing, and data science from tech marketing solutions firm, SpiceWorks Ziff Davis (SWZD).

SWZD found that employee learning preferences could correlate to their work from home status.

The survey, perhaps unsurprisingly, uncovered that completely in-person workers are two times as likely (46%) to be social learners who prefer collaboration than those who are fully remote (20%).

Thus, it may be beneficial for employers to recognize that their more introverted or independent workers could perform better in an at-home setting. 

Remote workers prefer the visual

In an even more drastic disparity, SWZD’s survey found that 70% of fully virtual workers prefer visual learning, in contrast with a mere 38% of fully in-person workers.

This makes sense, as remote workers deal more with the visual side of work, communicating through platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, presentations with charts and graphs, and meetings over video platforms like Zoom. 

In contrast to the visual work-from-home employees, in-person workers prefer more verbal learning, as almost half of those surveyed prefer the communication style of in-person work, getting more nuance and human connection through onsite conversations and meetings. 

According to the head of technology insights at SWZD, Peter Tsai, “Elon Musk’s one-size-fits-all assertion that all remote workers are ‘phoning’ it in’ ignores the fact that many employees likely naturally perform better in a fully remote environment because it better suits their preferred modes of interaction.”

The SWZD survey suggests that these correlations are not exclusive to fully remote or fully in-person employees. The data show that the number of respondents who prefer visual learning increased in tandem with how often they work from home.

Similarly, those who go into the office more are increasingly verbal learners. 

Workers want remote options

Thankfully for these workers, the current fluidity of the job market allows those who prefer alternate work environments to easily switch it up.

SWZD’s survey findings indicate that one-quarter of those in the IT sector plan to look for or change jobs in 2022. Among these respondents, 85% said they wanted jobs that have remote work options.

Therefore, HR executives who want to ensure the productivity of their workers would be well-advised to allow those with more visual and less social learning preferences to work from home, while encouraging those who prefer verbal and social learning to engage with in-person work opportunities. 

Tsai tells UNLEASH: “Because of this correlation, leaders within companies and HR professionals can benefit from better understanding how individuals within their organizations prefer to learn and communicate.” 

Though Musk’s comments may have been relevant pre-pandemic, the flexibility of working from home challenges his traditionalist statement about worker productivity.