‘Work-life balance’ has become the buzzword of this century. From magazine covers to Instagram posts, we find it almost everywhere.
The idea behind work-life balance is that people have a meaningful sense of balance between their work and enjoyable factors outside of work. It comes with a healthy desire to grow as people and not just devote all of energies at the workplace. Over the years, we humans have tackled work-life balance differently.
Baby Boomers and Their Idea of Work-Life Balance
Let’s start with the baby boomers. This is a generation of people born between the years 1946 and 1964. This population was made up the largest portion of the US workforce until they recently got surpassed by millennials.
Children of parents who lived through the Great Depression, the baby boomers were brought up to be hard workers.
Many of them took jobs after graduation and stayed with it for the rest of their lives. They were loyal to their bosses and did not give too much of importance to other enjoyable aspects of life.
Generation X and how they Tackled the Question of Work-Life Balance
This is the generation born between the years 1965 and 1980. Unlike their predecessors, people in generation X were less likely to stay on one job throughout their lives. These are the people who did not see any harm in switching jobs and even careers if they felt that they were dissatisfied.
These are also the people who watched their parents work extraordinarily long hours and miss their favorite basketball matches.
Generation Xers were more intent towards work-life balance. In fact, according to some experts, they were the first people to even talk about the concept of work-life balance. For them, it was things like leaving work early to watch their favorite soccer teams play or working from home.
Millennials and Work-Life Balance – Why It Matters More than Ever
Millennials, the most relevant population of current times, were people born between 1980 and 2000.
Like Generations Xers, millennials are also quite likely to switch jobs and industries to explore different opportunities.
Flexibility is a very crucial consideration for millennials. In fact, they can even accept a lower salary if it means getting control over their schedules. However, this does not mean that salary packages and health benefits do not mean anything to them.
Millennials are more interested in building themselves a lifestyle. They want to find meaningful work and integrate work with different aspects of their lives. For instance, millennials are more likely to work for organizations that have the same values as them.
They also highly appreciate socialization opportunities at the workplace. This is the reason many companies have started offering free gym memberships, opportunity to work towards philanthropic projects, and have made work hours more and more flexible.
We at JS Benefits Group are one of the leading employee health benefits consultants in Pennsylvania. Understanding the latest research in work-life balance, we help companies plan and design incredible health plans for their staff.
