What motivates you to work better: completing tasks or working in an office environment? Are you a trailblazer? A collaborator? Or maybe a traditionalist?

Flexible working is increasingly becoming an expectation rather than a luxury for many UK workers. Businesses are now having to navigate the tricky slope of giving power back to the employee and letting them set their own working environment that best suits them.

Even if you have a small team, every person who works for you will have different expectations and needs when it comes to the office. Some may need to bounce ideas off each other to garner a creative atmosphere and motivate themselves, while others are more solitary, requiring something more personal and quiet.

Research shows that 70 per cent of people in flexible workspaces say that having a quiet space for focused work is important to them, but just 23 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied with this aspect of their office.

What makes the perfect workspace varies from person to person, but a new online tool from flexible office space broker Workthere is set to help everyone find out how they work and the environment they are most productive in.

By answering a series of questions on how they communicate, their workplace frustrations and motivations, along with the structure of their working day, users of Workthere’s new tool are able to discover the type of working environment that’s right for their individual needs, and how this should improve their productivity.

The working personalities covered in the tool include:

Trailblazers – People who thrive on flexibility and require space to collaborate or retreat as needed, and come and go as they please.
Collaborators – Workers who perform best in an open work environment where they can bounce ideas and derive energy from others.
Traditionalists – People suited to a private office that allows them a stable and quiet place to work logically and systematically.
Best of Both Worlds – Workers who require a quiet space to get their heads down but still perform strongly as team members when given the opportunity to collaborate.

The tool has been developed in conjunction with performance coach, Jayne Stoddart, who has more than 20 years experience in training and developing senior managers and executives to enhance their performance.

Head of Workthere, Cal Lee says, “Increasing productivity has been a key business goal in the boardroom for decades, with employers looking to gain the most from their employees, whilst also minimising the risk of staff burnout. However, we have recently seen individual workers become increasingly aware of their personal productivity and how they can make the most of the hours spent at work. The rise of flexible working in particular has placed more emphasis on the importance of staff productivity.

“Each person works differently and it’s vital businesses or individuals have a workplace that can meet these needs; from the quiet, private office required for a ‘Traditionalist’ worker personality to thrive, to the open plan working environment needed for ‘Collaborators’ within the workforce.”

Responses from the What Workers Want research, released by Savills and Workthere earlier this year, show many workers in flexible workspace – including serviced offices and co-working spaces – face frustrations with the standard of their workspace.

Similarly, 77 per cent of respondents rated good quality wireless technology as important or very important, but only 41 per cent were satisfied or very satisfied with the Wi-Fi supplied by their workplace.