"Commercial real estate, and particularly the office sector, has entered a unique era of servicing three distinct generations," says Fred Schmidt, president and chief operating officer of Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates. "Where and how people work is changing. The Millennial generation and shifting economy are a big part of that. It's important for commercial real estate professionals to understand these trends and be able to provide solutions for today's evolving marketplace."

Where Americans Prefer to Work

Overall, 72 percent of the people who responded to the survey say they would prefer working in a private office to any other office location, such as a cubicle, open desk or shared office. However, Millennials in the responding group are significantly more open to other working arrangements than their coworkers:

• Millennials are willing to commute nearly twice as long as any other generation (an average of 51 minutes) to get to work each day, compared to 36 minutes for Gen Xers and 31 minutes for Boomers
• More Gen Xers (77 percent) and Boomers (71 percent) in the responding group prefer to work from home than Millennials (67 percent)
• Most Millennials (55 percent) answering the survey say they prefer working in an office with an open floor plan to a floor plan with cubicles or private offices, compared to less than half of Gen Xers (41 percent) and Boomers (41 percent)

How Americans Prefer to Work

While Millennials are "digital natives," respondents to the Coldwell Banker survey still believe face-to-face communication is an important part of business and are the most willing to share their workspace with someone else:

• More Millennials (77 percent) in the survey group believe face-to-face business meetings are important than Gen Xers (67 percent) and Boomers (74 percent) who participated.
• Nearly two in three Millennials (63 percent) and 54 percent of Gen Xers in the survey would be as comfortable working from a mobile device such as a phone, tablet or laptop, as they would be working from a desktop computer, but, perhaps more surprisingly, nearly half (48 percent) of Boomers who answered say they are also as comfortable working from a mobile device as they would from a desktop
• Most Millennials (59 percent) in the survey would be comfortable sharing their workspace with someone else, compared to only 46 percent of Gen Xers and 49 percent of Boomers

"We're seeing square footage per employee drop as companies look to maximize profitability," says Schmidt. "However, we still need to pay attention to how people want to work in order to create an environment that will help recruit and maintain a productive workforce."

These and additional findings of the survey are available on the Coldwell Banker Commercial^® website.

Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States between July 29 and July 31, 2014 among 2,065 adults (aged 18 and over) by Harris Poll on behalf of Coldwell Banker Commercial Affiliates via its Quick Query omnibus product. Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online.

Respondents for this survey were selected from among those who have agreed to participate in Harris surveys. The data have been weighted to reflect the composition of the adult population. Because the sample is based on those who agreed to participate in our panel, no estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.