Think you know your employees? Find out if they’re ‘splitters’ or ‘blenders’

HR thinkers have had much to stew over in the last few years as the pandemic triggered major change in how work gets done. Almost overnight, workers learned how to be productive in nontraditional environments. And that experience is causing researchers to take a close look at how organizations—and the people who drive them—can best thrive.

Recent research from Gallup identified two types of workers—“splitters,” who want to split work from the rest of their life, and “blenders,” who want to blend work and life. The key for employers is knowing who’s who.

Who are splitters and blenders?

Gallup reported its research shows “there is a dead-even, 50-50 split” between the two preferences. That means as organizations decide when and where people should work, they need to know which employees prefer which work style.

“Splitters might work best at home or in the office but want to maintain a strict schedule of hours in each location,” Gallup’s report on the research says. “Blenders might get work done on a weekend or evening, or early in the morning before the office opens.”

The research found splitters are more common in production jobs, with 59% preferring to split work from the rest of their life and 41% preferring a blend. But other categories—white collar, healthcare/social assistance, administrative/clerical, managerial, and “other”—prefer to blend.

“Predictably, on-site workers are more likely to be splitters at 61%, but 39% of those workers still have a blender’s mentality,” the Gallup report says.