Millennials want two things to stay: high waisted jeans and hybrid work. In both trends, they have intergenerational support.
“Millennials are acutely attuned to the benefits of a hybrid working model,” said Prudential Financial Vice Chair Rob Falzon in its latest report, Generational Gap Grows: Work & Money Outlook Divided. He noted that their status as the largest generation in the workforce and their proclivity for flexibility will make hybrid work a permanent fixture.
That might be a good thing for employers, considering that a majority of hybrid workers (70%) reported that they have strong feelings of company loyalty, Prudential found after surveying more than 4,700 adults. On the other hand, 64% of in-person and only 59% of remote workers feel similarly faithful to their employer.
Perhaps the gap is because hybrid employees are also more likely to feel satisfied by their pay and individually tailored benefits, the research finds.
Since hybrid workers are often more happy with their compensation, they therefore might be less prone to job hopping, which has been an increasingly popular avenue for employees in a time when more people are struggling to make ends meet—a trend especially popular among younger generations, per Prudential.
While many big employers want workers back at their desks five days a week, hybrid policies often end up being the middle-ground they strike in order to appease employees who want the flexibility of remote work and the higher-ups who want workers back at their desks.
Data from Work From Home Research shows that hybrid work isn’t just a blip in workforce trends. Researchers found that the benefits of hybrid work included more satisfied employees, better productivity, more diversity, equality, and inclusion support, and a possible better use of space. While remote work is a newfound desire, the study found that most employees only want to work remotely at most three days a week. And most employees have taken to hybrid work so much that they value the policy’s flexibility as much as an 8% pay raise.
“In 2023, we’ll be laughing at anyone who does anything else but hybrid,” Nick Bloom, Stanford economist and researcher at WFH Research, told Fortune’s Jane Thier.
And previous research from software company Citrix revealed that hybrid knowledge workers were more likely than their remote or fully in-office peers to connect with their coworkers in a manner that made them happier and more productive. They also reported being more connected to their leaders.
Turns out, even with a potential impending recession, hybrid work is still the popular policy for most workers. And if companies want their workers to stick around, they might want to let them out of their sights three days a week.
