A Healthy Balance Between Work and Personal Life

By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff August 12, 2005

Studies show that one of employees’ highest priorities is achieving a healthy balance between professional career and private life, says Kim McLean, a SullivanKreiss market sector leader whose area of focus includes A/E design firms.

“This concern is especially prominent among younger employees,” she writes in the SullivanKreiss Executive Search Newsletter for Aug 2005, “who seem less satisfied with working conditions than previous generations.”

According to McLean, a survey of 7,718 Americans aged 18 and over, conducted by Harris Interactive, Inc. for Age Wave, an independent think tank, found that just 45% of employees are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their jobs. Younger workers are the most distressed, and they feel the least amount of loyalty to their employers, the survey, released earlier this year, found.

“Maybe it’s not surprising that younger workers are more dissatisfied with their jobs and are less loyal to their employers,” writes McLean. “Consider what workers in their 20s and 30s have witnessed: frequent mergers and acquisitions leading to layoffs of their parents and themselves, workers displaced by outsourced jobs abroad, high-profile corporate financial scandals and many manufacturing jobs lost to global competition.”

The result, she suggests, is that younger workers have a different outlook on the workplace and on life in general.

McLean offers a number of suggestions for addressing the issue of work/life balance for these employees. To read her article, click here .