No socialising and no formal dress

Qualtrics, a global insight platform, has released the results of its first Global Attitudes Toward Work survey, which mined the insights of 6,250 people from 14 countries. It found that 93 percent of New Zealanders are least likely to socialise with co-workers outside of work and only 22 percent of New Zealanders considered dressing formally for work to be important.

Bill McMurray, Qualtrics MD Asia Pacific and Japan, said it was surprising that New Zealanders aren’t interested in socialising with colleagues outside of work hours. “It seems this is more important for European countries such as Italy, which had the highest number of workers wanting to socialise.”

In terms of how New Zealanders like to communicate with their colleagues, 85 percent prefer face-to-face communication rather than video or phone.

The study also revealed New Zealanders are slightly less productive than global averages. New Zealand respondents said 62 percent of their working hours were productive, compared with 70 percent globally.

The Germans reported the highest levels of personal productivity and placed the most importance on punctuality. Meanwhile, the Italians ranked themselves as the least productive.

The study also revealed 70 percent of New Zealand workers prefer to receive performance feedback less often than weekly.

McMurray said that workers tend to fear being micromanaged. “Instead, they prefer to feel that their employer cares about them.

“New Zealanders rank caring about employees, honesty, and competence as the top three attributes of a manager. The bottom three were being persuasive, assertiveness and being energetic. This is valuable information for companies looking to hold onto skilled workers.”

The survey included respondents from NZ, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US.