At Intelligent Office, we’ve taken an in-depth look at who the new worker is, and how they want to work. We’ve looked at the role of the traditional workplace, and have studied the evolving demands of the modern worker.

We were probably not as surprised as you were when we learned that not a single survey respondent aspired to be a corporate executive only because we work with these people everyday. But, to have not ONE respondent want to climb the preverbal corporate ladder makes us take a step back and ask the question what do today’s workers want? Our Work IQ survey showed that today’s employees are moving towards a work style that allows them more flexibility, mobility, and perhaps most importantly, more freedom.

This is particularly true among the younger generation of today’s workforce. Cisco recently surveyed 2,800 college students and young professionals to find out what they consider to be the most important aspects of their work life, and the results signify a noticeable shift in the priorities of modern workers.

Some of the results are what you might expect: Young professionals largely want access to social media at work, and 2/3 reported asking about social media policies in job interviews. They want the freedom to choose their own devices, and believe they should have the freedom to use those devices for both business and personal use. Over half also claimed that they would not accept a job offer if the company bans social media, or would circumvent the policy

What you might not expect, however, is that half of the people surveyed viewed these things as more important than salary. Even more surprising? It’s not just the younger generation anymore. These trends seem to be influencing workers across all generations, and employees across the board now consider mobility and freedom to play an important role in their job. In fact, the majority of those surveyed claimed that they no longer think that it’s important to be in an office regularly.

It’s no wonder that the use of shared workspaces and virtual office spaces is on the rise today. The ability to decide where work is done, and on what device it’s done, seem to play an increasingly important role in the satisfaction of modern workers, even taking precedence over pay, and it is a driving force behind their career decisions.

A vastly growing number of employees have made it clear that it’s important to have the freedom to work on their own terms, and that will continue to increase as the technology and professional resources making that possible continues to expand.