The nine personas that sum up worker behaviour in the flexible era

As flexible working widens its scope, a growing schism between employee preferences and company policies on work location has been evident around the world. But faced with the many different configurations of remote, hybrid and office-first work offered by employers, there are signs that workers are behaving in many different ways too.

New US research from Radostina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell of Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, has identified nine employee ‘personas’. The study was based on interviews with 72 team members and 17 company executives in three large American organisations, and written up in the Harvard Business Review, 2 November 2023.

Nine personas

When employees prefer to work from home and

• the company strategy is remote-first, the persona developed is Avatar (‘work from home is the most rewarding and energising’)
• the company strategy is hybrid, the persona is Rebel (‘work is a means to live; family is life’)
• the company strategy is office-forward, the persona developed is Producer (‘work is about productivity, not social life’).

When the employee preference is hybrid and

• the company strategy is remote-first, the persona developed is Centrist (‘going too far down the remote-work path is dangerous’)
• the company strategy is hybrid, the persona is Integrator (‘office-plus-home is the best of both worlds’)
• the company strategy is office-forward, the persona is Progressive (‘the benefits of remote work must not be lost’).

When the employee preference is working at the office and

• the company strategy is remote-first, the persona is Community-Seeker (‘work is not the same without office comradery’)
• the company strategy is hybrid, the persona is Traditionalist (‘office work facilitates work-family separation’)
• the company strategy is office-forward, the persona developed is Officer (‘work-from-office is the most rewarding and energising’).

Courtesy of: Radostina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchel.

A lot of information is shared about each persona.  For example: with employees who prefer to work from home, ‘When these employees work for a remote-first company — a point of perfect alignment between company strategy and personal preference — the Avatar persona is born. . .  Avatars are intensely loyal for the freedom they have been granted. They recognise the “golden handcuffs” of remote work may be stalling their career…but they don’t wish to be uncuffed.’

Source: Radostina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell. 2023. ‘Where Companies Want Employees to Work – And Where People Actually Want to Work.’ Harvard Business Review

Read more of the latest research insights from Sally Augustin in Research Round-up, her regular column in the Innovation Zone here.