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Flexible Workplace Ups Efficiency

Brooke Miller
First Posted: Jun 27, 2012 07:16 AM EDT

Travelling miles to reach your workplace and spending more than 9-10 hours of your day is definitely not easy. A new Wakefield Research Study commissioned by Citrix, emphasizes on the innovative measures people are taking to avoid stressful work at office and what they're willing to sacrifice for the flexibility to work from home just one day a week.

In order to conduct the research, the team from Wakefield conducted the survey of more than 1,000 American office workers ages 18 and older, between June 8 and June 14, 2012, using an email invitation and an online survey. The study revealed certain trends and reasons that workers feel they need a break from the office and they prefer business from or during a vacation over office environment.

The interesting facts the study revealed is that, 34% of office workers secretly dislike participating in costume contests followed by 31% who say they dislike team-building activities. The most disliked office event for male co-workers is office baby showers (42 %) while female workers hate staff photos (31 %). 

To put up with a colleague who is difficult to deal with is definitely not a cake walk. It is noticed that almost half (49 %) of respondents work with a competent ones and 44% work with a "faultfinder." In fact, 51% believe that a "constant complainer" is someone they would prefer to stay miles away from.

It was also noticed that 39 % of office workers scheduled time off around their bosses' vacation in order to maximize the time they won't have to spend together. If you think this concept existed only in the junior level, The following fact will prove you wrong.  39% of executive and manager-level workers admit to this move compared to 27 percent of mid- and junior-level workers.

Half of survey takers say their bosses oppose the practice of working from home. According to source, Kim DeCarlis, Citrix's vice president for corporate marketing said, "it's not surprising that workers allow themselves to get distracted at home. It speaks to the fluidity with which people are moving between work and life today. Work no longer happens just between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. from Monday through Friday. Life is no longer squeezed in on the weekends and evenings. These days, it's more a question of who hasn't checked and responded to a work e-mail on a weekend or while attending a child's sport activity."

He concludes saying that, "This survey shows that companies will benefit by being more flexible in allowing employees to work from anywhere. Enabling people to blend their professional and personal lives can boost morale as well as productivity. And there are plenty of tools and technologies today that empower people to do their jobs from any location. That's a win-win for companies and employees alike"

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