Ok, I have a weakness for these types of surveys.  From CareerBuilder:

“Workplace Taboos” is a new CareerBuilder.com survey, conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 5,700 workers. The most common workplace taboos that workers admitted to taking part in include:

1. Falling asleep at work (45 percent)
2. Kissing a co-worker (39 percent)
3. Stealing from the office (22 percent)
4. Spreading a rumor about a co-worker (22 percent)
5. Consuming alcoholic beverages while on the job (21 percent)
6. Snooping after hours (18 percent)
7. Lying about an academic background (4 percent)
8. Taking credit for someone else’s work (2 percent)

I laughed at number 1 since I used to work at a company where the customer service manager would fall asleep at his desk every afternoon.  He had it down to a science – he could sleep with his hands on the keyboard while sitting up.  Eventually his head would nod down, but it took some time.  It really was remarkable.

To top it off, he was promoted.  And later fired.

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The US Senate designated October as National Work and Family Month back in 2003 in hopes that it would engage employers into sponsoring work/life programs for their employees. We’ve posted about this topic before, but as more and more Gen X & Y’ers fill the roles of the retiring Baby Boomers, this subject will require attention by everyone who plans on hiring.

Gen X & Y’ers consider work/life balance a very important topic, often reporting it as important as money. As we posted earlier this year, a survey of recruiters showed that 85% of them have seen candidates reject a job offer because it was misaligned with their work-life balance. So you have 2 choices, the first is to maintain the status quo and ignore the importance of life outside of work. The second is to look at ways that you can help your employees maintain a good balance.

An example: Deloitte & Touche, which in 2004 launched a program that allows qualifying employees to leave for up to five years to focus on personal goals, such as family. Now I’ll admit that is a fairly significant program and not every company is able to implement a comparable program. As an employer the question you need to ask is how balanced of a life do my employees have and, more importantly, what do they expect? I think you may be surprised at the gap.

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