Maybe it is me, but there seems to be many different groupings and names for the different generations in our society today. I was reading an article about a recent Harris Poll that used this generation grouping:

Matures (those ages 62 and over)
Baby Boomers (those ages 43 to 61)
Gen Xers (ages 31 to 42)
Echo Boomers (ages 18 to 30)

I am not familiar with “Echo Boomers” terminology – I always thought that generation was referred to as Generation Y. “Matures” is a new one for me too. Wouldn’t it be nice if somehow we could get some ANSI-like standard on what the generational names are?

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I had never heard of “presenteeism” up until a couple of months ago as I mentioned in this post. Now I encountered this SM&M article – Working While Sick.

Top reasons for schlepping in when sick: I feel guilty for calling in; my workload is too heavy; I save my sick time for personal reasons like family emergencies, sick children, parent care issues and other unexpected events; and I try to have perfect attendance.

“Schlepping in…?” Another new phrase for me. No real surprises in the reasons for coming to work sick. I did find this paragraph insightful:

The study suggests bosses could do more to stem the trend. “Employees are craving flexibility from their employers. ‘Working 9 to 5′ is no longer the universal employee anthem,” says Stuart Itkin, chief marketing officer at Kronos. “To reduce presenteeism, bolster employee satisfaction, improve workforce productivity, and boost the bottom line, best practice organizations are providing employees with flexibility and rewarding them based on results.”

This trend is booming in the corporate world. We see it daily in our customer base and we hear inquiries from candidates on a consistent basis. Flexible hours will be a staple of the Gen Y work world.

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Google and work-life balance – this story may make you sick with envy. In case you haven’t heard, Google was ranked as the best company to work for in the US. The aforementioned link is a slide show that reveals what the culture of Google. All I can say is amazing.

Just to give you a partial idea of the Google campus:

Google takes the work-life balance to a new level. A Googler who’s pressed for time can get plenty of errands done while at work. Employees can do laundry for free in company washers and dryers (free detergent too) or drop off dry cleaning.Among Google’s many other conveniences offered to its employees: a workout room with weights and rowing machine, locker rooms, a massage room, child care, onsite notaries, car services and five onsite doctors available for employee checkups, free of charge.

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I don’t think this foxnews.com story needs much analysis – Business Owners Confess to Checking E-mail While Driving, Using Bathroom.

The survey suggests that entrepreneurs cope with the lack of time by working whenever and wherever they can. Forty-nine percent of respondents said they make business calls and check while driving, and 18 percent admit they read work-related e-mail and documents while in the bathroom.

I think this survey redefines the definition of work-life imbalance.

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From abcnews.com – How to Have More Fun at Work. This topic is going to become more common as Gen X ascends and Gen Y populates the workforce. Already we are seeing numerous articles on work/life balance enter the article sphere.

I’ve worked for many Boomer managers who were suit-and-tie, get your work done leaders with no time for, well, fun at the office. At one technology employer, we had a dartboard and ping pong table in the lunchroom that was a huge hit. In the sales department, we would take a 15 minute afternoon break to go trash-talk each other while competing like we were in the Olympics. To this day, I remember how enjoyable those competitions were. Afterwards, we would get back to work almost invigorated from the mini battle.

Now for a strange aside. When my son was in preschool years ago, the teacher explained that children learn better when they have large-muscle activity before a seated learning time. I don’t know if that is true of adults or not, but as I mentioned, I always felt invigorated after a game of ping pong. I had more energy and was more “alive” on my phone calls.

Yet there is a downside to offering this type of fun at the office. The word came down from the Boomer management team that salespeople should not be playing ping pong at any time during the day. Mind you, no other departments received a similar dictate, just sales. After that, every time we went to get a coffee or snack, we would see others enjoying a part of the corporate culture that was forbidden to us. That rule created much angst and resentment between the sales team and the managers.

My point is simple, if you are going to commit to a culture of fun, make sure you set parameters at the beginning and make it accessible to all employees. And remember, the opportunity for employees to have some fun will go miles to improving morale and hopefully retention.

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Now HotJobs.com offers up their survey about job seekers in 2007 – Many workers to consider new jobs in 2007. No surprises in that headline. Their stats:

The survey — in which nearly two-thirds of respondents (66 percent) said they would consider new job opportunities in 2007 — suggests the U.S. workforce is full of “passive job seekers” looking to improve their prospects.Optimism about new jobs in 2007 was also common among survey-takers, as approximately 70 percent believe opportunities for job seekers are better or the same as one year ago.

These numbers are similar to SHRM’s results.

There is a stark contradiction later in the article.

Salary ranked as the main thing workers would change about their jobs (39 percent), with benefits coming in a distant second place at 12 percent. In addition, three-fourths of respondents said they did not get the raise or bonus they expected in 2005.

Yet, later in the article is this finding:

When asked how they define success, respondents opted for less tangible benefits than salary. Nearly half (46 percent) said having a work/life balance was the key to success, while 41 percent equated “feeling fulfilled” with success. Only 9 percent considered a high salary as the indicator of success.

It would be interesting to know the age groups that were surveyed, or at least the break out of respondents. Salary is probably what most survey participants believe is the “proper” answer to a survey question regarding why they would leave. Yet half of them do not find it to be a key to their own personal success.

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Just a quick thought to start this new year – one way to spot a suspect opportunity is if the employment ad spends more words describing what you don’t have to do as opposed to what you do have to do. I just read an ad that spent multiple sentences and bullet points explaining what the position did not entail.

Mainly, it sounds like you don’t have to work.

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Telecommuting is the Norm is a quick article from Sales & Marketing Management’s website. I don’t think this trend is surprising to most people. We have seen a tremendous shift towards this approach in outside sales positions over the past 2 years especially. Most candidates now expect some form of telecommuting capability including wireless-connected laptops, VPN connections and PDA cell phones.

If your company does not offer these telecommuting basics, consider this excerpt from the article:

“The war for talent, combined with commuting times and costs, and an increasing need for work-life balance are all factors that promote telecommuting,” says Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh. “All things being equal, a well-articulated telecommuting policy can make the difference between winning and losing a bid for a high-impact professional, especially when more than twenty-seven million people in the United States work from home.”

Among the telecommuting trends:

* 25 percent of managers allow working from home, 13 percent allow working from a satellite office and 44 percent have other arrangements that support telecommuting. Only 19 percent say they have no telecommuting procedure.

Most managers say they expect telecommuting to grow over the next two years. Only 35 percent said it was unlikely that telecommuting would increase.

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And now for a brief follow up to my previous post. From foxnews.com’s business section – Money Might Buy At Least a Little Happiness, Study Shows. A strange survey for sure, but one that illustrates that there is some happiness to having money. That I don’t doubt. But two excerpts from the article are quite fascinating. First:

Does money make you happier? Or does being happier in the first place allow you to earn more money later, maybe by way of greater creativity or energy? Or does some other factor produce both money and happiness? There’s evidence for all three interpretations, Lucas says.

I am partial to his second question in that string as being the most accurate. Whichever one is correct, I greatly enjoyed the closing graph:

“People exaggerate how much happiness is bought by an extra few thousand,” Oswald said. “The quality of relationships has a far bigger effect than quite large rises in salary…. It’s much better advice, if you’re looking for happiness in life, to try to find the right husband or wife rather than trying to double your salary.”

That piece of advice, I know, is absolutely accurate.

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I hope this isn’t a trend – Extreme Jobs Mean Long Hours, Little Sleep — A Lot of Money. The example in the article is a trial lawyer working to make partner (reminds me of John Grisham’s book The Firm). How about this (my emphasis):

A new study in the upcoming issue of the Harvard Business Review estimates that 1.7 million Americans now hold extreme jobs. The study defined “extreme” as any job that requires more than 60 work hours per week and fits various parameters regarding work flow, travel, responsibilities away from the office and outside commitments.

A further description of Mr Shontz (the trial lawyer):

Shontz is almost never home for dinner with his wife and three children, and even breakfast at home is a rare occurrence.

If it works for him, more power to him. I just can’t imagine any line of work being more valuable than time with your family.

According to the Harvard study, 52 percent of the nation’s top income earners those in the top 6 percent of earners and often making six-figure salaries work more than 70 hours a week. And 48 percent say they are working 16 hours a week more than they did just five years ago.

Ok, maybe it is a trend and a bad one at that. The article concludes with my initial thought to this work/life imbalance (my emphasis):

The potential for burnout on these jobs is also extreme. The Harvard study revealed the dark side of working such punishing hours. High percentages of the high performers in the study said the crazy schedule took a huge toll on their family lives and even their health particularly because of a lack of sleep.

I have no empirical data to support this statement, but I suspect this extreme work schedule will not carry through to the younger generations. They seem to have a distinct drive to find a work/life balance that differs greatly from the “high performers” in this study.

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