Over 90% of Young Workers Having Difficulty Working from Home, Survey Finds

While seen as the most tech-savvy group of employees, younger generations are more likely to stick to traditional platforms to get work done

BELLEVUE, Wash., April 22, 2020 – Smartsheet (NYSE: SMAR), the platform for enterprise achievement, today announced that despite being more tech fluent, 95% of Generation Z and 93% of Millennial workers report difficulty working from home as a result of COVID-19, according to a survey of professionals conducted by ENGINE INSIGHTS and commissioned by Smartsheet.

Key findings include:

• Three-fourths of the American workforce feels less connected; young workers especially so with 82% of Generation Z and 81% of Millennials reporting this issue.

• Sixty percent of American workers feel less informed about what is going on within their company since they started working from home. Young workers feel it the most, with 74% of Generation Z and 66% of Millennials reporting this, versus 53% of Generation X and 50% of Boomers. 

While communication tools have a role in connecting employees across an organization, young workers have identified video calls as an obstacle to their productivity. Sixty-one percent of Generation Z and 57% of Millennials say the amount of time spent on video calls each day is making it hard to get work done. Comparatively, 35% of Generation X and 26% of Baby Boomers say the same, illustrating a gap between the older and younger segments of the workforce. 

“This research shows that the key to helping remote workers cope with the current circumstance, and thriving in the longer-term, goes far beyond simply connecting people and teams through video-based technology,” said Smartsheet CEO Mark Mader. “To be effective, people need to stay deeply connected to their work and the work of their teams. They also need context, structure, tracking, and visibility into their work. Providing those things is more important now than ever.”

The survey revealed several additional gaps in how younger and older workers approached productivity and workplace technology, including: 

Generation Z and Millennials are finding it hard to communicate and gather information. 

• Nearly half of Generation Z and Millennials noted that communicating with colleagues has been difficult (48% and 46% respectively, versus 35% and 36% for Generation X and Boomers, respectively).
• While half of Generation Z and Millennials (50% each) find it hard to get status updates, only 40% of Generation X and 39% of Baby Boomers say the same.
• Over 40% of Generation Z and Millennials noted that collecting the information they need has been difficult (44% and 42% respectively, versus 33% for both Generation X and Boomers).
• Additionally, more than one-third (36%) of all workers said it is harder to give status updates on projects now that they’re working remotely. Only 18% said it’s easier.
• Thirty-one percent of all workers said that understanding the status of projects they’re involved in and how they can best move them forward has been difficult since they began working from home. 

While usually seen as the most tech-savvy group of employees, younger generations are sticking to traditional platforms for getting work done. This may explain some of their struggles.

• The vast majority of Generation Z (73%) and Millennials (71%) use email to track and/or measure their output, compared to 67% for Generation X and Boomers.
• Interestingly, men (21%) were far more likely to use messaging software as their most used tool to get updates on projects than women (12%). Women were most likely to use email (60% versus 49%).
• Only 19% of respondents say they use phone/video calls most often to get updates on projects. 

*Survey methodology

The survey was conducted by ENGINE INSIGHTS among a sample of 1,004 U.S. adults ages 18+ who are currently employed, previously worked in an office setting but are now working from home due to COVID-19, and work for companies with 1,000+ employees. This survey was live on April 8-15, 2020.

About Smartsheet

Smartsheet (NYSE: SMAR) is the platform for enterprise achievement. By aligning people and technology so organizations can move faster and drive innovation, Smartsheet enables its 84,000 customers and millions of users to achieve more. Visit www.smartsheet.com to learn more.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements that are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about Smartsheet’s expectations regarding possible or assumed business strategies, channel and partner strategies, potential growth and innovation opportunities, new products, and potential market opportunities.

Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or our future financial or operating performance. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and can be identified by terms such as “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “potential,” “remain,” “will,” “would” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to: our ability to achieve future growth and sustain our growth rate, our ability to attract and retain talent, our ability to attract and retain customers (including government customers) and increase sales to our customers, our ability to develop and release new products and services and to scale our platform, our ability to increase adoption of our platform through our self-service model, our ability to maintain and grow our relationships with strategic partners, the highly competitive and rapidly evolving market in which we participate, our ability to identify targets for, execute on, or realize the benefits of, potential acquisitions, and our international expansion strategies. Further information on risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from forecasted results is included in our filings with the SEC, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020 filed with the SEC on March 31, 2020. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons if actual results differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements.