Jeff Bezos. Founder of Amazon. About work-life balance. Or as he would call it work-life harmony.
work-life balance
Job security with a good work-life balance
Classic factors of employee motivation continue to play an important role. A new study shows that every second employee attaches great importance to a secure job. However, only around a third of those surveyed are willing to make sacrifices for this.
Job security is an important motivating factor for every second employee: 52 percent of women and 58 percent of men attach great importance to it, according to the results of the study “The future of work: A journey to 2022”. For the study, the consulting company PWC asked around 2,000 employees in Germany about their ideas about the future of work, 46 percent of whom were male and 54 percent female.
According to the study, however, only around a third of those surveyed are willing to sacrifice their work-life balance for a secure job: 36 percent of the male and only 32 percent of the female respondents say they would be permanent for the prospect of a secure job available to your employer.
By the numbers
A look at the numbers behind remote work and increased vacation time not being the solution to a work-life-balance.
YouTube comments:
“If you want to make real $ there is no such thing as work life balance.”
I quit my $120k job
I decided to quit my job after I realized these 3 lessons. Although I heard of these 3 things before, they never clicked inside my head until these events happened in my life.
YouTube comments:
“If you don’t have a dream, someone will hire you to build their dreams.”
“I think the scariest thing for most people (myself included) is leaving the security of the job that you have. When you sent have another form of income already leaving that job can be terrifying.”
“I can relate to your experiences when you told the story about the interaction with your parents. I have a similar experience and I realized this has gotten worse when I put my well being: mentally and physically on the back burner for work. The biggest turning point for me is when I started to see my parents physical changes from old age; graying of hair, memory declining and just not recovering as quickly as they used to. That’s when I realized I f’d up. The excuses of I’m too busy to see them or the free time that is being sacrificed is for what? To out-compete your colleagues or hustle more than what is expected from the job description? We are expendable as you said. I took a seat back and started to see this toxic culture that it is “ok” to work off hours or be on call at a moment’s notice EVEN when you are on vacation; it’s not ok. It’s starting to crack and wake people up. The pandemic just accelerated it and you see stories of people wanting to take their lives back by pushing for WFH or do what is expected from you. Nothing more nothing less. My point to this story is that this isn’t unique. I feel there are many of us who are feeling this way and it’s not too late to change. Just need to make a commitment and walk that path.”
Why I left my tech job
Tech jobs are known to have some of the most lavish benefits and perks, not to mention some of the highest salaries in the country. Still, that is not enough to keep some millennials from quitting. CNBC Make It spoke to several people who left their lucrative tech jobs to find out why they did it and what they are doing now.
YouTube comments:
“I am 50 years old working in the high tech industry, mentally tired and sick of the weekly 8 to 5 routine. Never got a proper day off even through the pandemic. Hats off to the millenials and GenZ that think differently and put more weight on LIVING rather than just WORKING.”
“As someone who used to work 80 hours a week, quitting my job to become a freelancer was the best thing I have ever done. Sure I still work a lot of hours and often close to 70-80 hrs a week, I feel like I am doing this for myself and not some corporation.”
“I worked a low paying tech job for six years and still felt the burn out. The problem is that tech is very fast paced and competition focused. You can barely keep up. Though I got promoted regularly, my higher ups told me the truth before they left, they said that I was severely underpaid based on my skills (essentially I branded myself a one stop shop for the marketing department as I am both technically knowledgeable, people oriented and strategic). I maxed out at $50K. So I decided to jump ship with little planned. Now I run a financial agency with my husband and we make $250K a year as entrepreneurs and we have the freedom to set our own lifestyle.”
“We don’t want perks. We want more money and we want autonomy. It’s simple.”
Working hours. Holidays. And more.
A key issue for many workers is flexible working time in order to have a work-life balance. Negotiating a work/life balance can help enable parents (both men and women) to reconcile their work with their family lives and women in particular to participate in the labour market.
Finding the right work-life balance can allow workers to take leave from work so that they can participate in education or training or take up an interest, hobby or leisure pursuit. This may mean that employees can reorganise their working lives and hours around shorter days, weeks, months or years.
German families tend to be small with only one or two children. The men are still quite often considered to be the head of the household, even though both the wife and husband work.
Why Most Google Employees Quit After 1.1 Years
YouTube comments:
“I’m surprised that Google have such aggressive deadlines, considering them not having any noticeable new products the past few years, in addition to the closure of many of their products.”
“I disagree with this. My experience at Google was awesome. It was like working on a cruise ship and in my two years I can only remember having to stay late 2-3 times. I only left because once you work at Google other tech companies want you really bad and will pay more to get you.”
“As a current Software Engineer @ Google that started on 02/28/2022, I can see why Googlers quit! It’s hard to past the yearly perk review as a rookie, Junior SWE and if you don’t show steady progression within your role, you will continue to barely pass your yearly perk or even fail! The 5 reasons you mention on here are factual but I would add not passing the yearly perk review or getting a “meet expectations”, then you will most likely quit, because you will feel the pressure to perform at a much higher level. This takes a tole on your mental and emotional health big time! No amount of money is worth your mental and emotional health and feel like you’re going crazy!”
Quitting my job was a big mistake
YouTube Comments:
“No matter how much I suffer after quitting my job, I will never suffer more than having worked from the job I quit.”
“I went from being an entrepreneur with 6 figure income to an employee. I can honestly say, being an employee is not that bad since i do get to “slack” at times and still get paid since I’m efficient at my work. Definitely not the same for self-owned business. I think a balance between the 2 is the sweet spot for me.”
“I own two successful businesses, and I recently went through the same exact thing. There are days where I wonder if I made the biggest mistake of my life not going to law school after I crushed the LSAT. But then I had a moment where I wanted to spend time with my new wife. We were exhausted, run down from our businesses, and… we made ourself relax in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. We didn’t have to ask permission, we just did it. As I looked around that day at people with their heads down working, I realized what the sacrifices were really about. We look at things differently. We plan and look forward based on ambition, not quotas and box checking. We were, truly, masters of our own destiny. And most importantly, it felt like we were. You’ll feel like this again. And it will pass again in the wake of your successes. Just remember: nobody on this earth can threaten your livlihood if you don’t appease their corporate/company byline. If the unthinkable happens and you DID fail… you’ll just innovate, adapt, and overcome. You said it yourself in one of your videos, if you focus on your failures, you ignore the massive volume of wins you’ve ever had. It’s all a race for financial independence and peace. Godspeed, and I’ll see you at the finish line.”
Quits $80K job to work in grocery store
Yves quit his job even though he had it all: a big salary, health benefits and a pension plan. He sold his downtown condo, too. Why did he decide to drastically simplify his life? Because he was unhappy and unfulfilled. A couple of years ago, he went on a 10-day silent retreat and, after much soul-searching, realized that his job and his stressful lifestyle needed to go.
Now, a year and a half later, he’s living a minimalist lifestyle in a small bachelor apartment, riding his bike to work, and working 3 days a week at a grocery store. He has more time to spend with the people he loves, and a lot less stress. Does he regret his downshifting decision? Watch this video to find out!
YouTube comments:
“I can relate to this guy. I worked in a gov job for 20 years and was in the same situation. I was miserable all the time. Unlike him though, I have a wife and kids to take care of, and cannot simply walk away.”
“I’m 26. I quit my stressful job this year, lowered my expenses, and work 3 days/week at a hospital now. Not a single regret!”
“Saw this 2 yrs ago and i laughed at him thinking he was a chump. 2 yrs later after being in a toxic environment i realize i’m the chump.”
“This guy is telling my story. The only difference is, he actually had the courage to leave once he hit his breaking point. I just made 26 years at my job this past Friday and have been suffering in silence the whole time. Bravo sir for acknowledging your inner voice and taking charge of your life! Thanks for sharing his story.”
Shanghai … wait, what?
Referring again to this article in the New York Times about how a few major U.S. companies are handling the post-Covid work environment. With some employees returning full-time to the office. Others are working exlusively or almost excluisively from home. And many dividing their time between office and home.
“Though most evidence that remote workers are at a disadvantage is anecdotal, at least one study, led by researchers at Stanford University, suggests they are less likely to be promoted than their in-office peers. In the experiment researchers randomly assigned workers at a large travel agency in Shanghai to work remotely or in the office for nine months. Though the remote workers were 13 percent more productive, putting in more hours and making more calls per minute, they were promoted about half as often as their in-office peers.”
“They can get forgotten,” said Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford and one of the study’s authors.
But wait, what, Professor Bloom? That’s Shanghai. Those are Chinese. What does anecdotal evidence from China tell us about how Americans benefit or lose out if and when working remotely?