Is it possible to combine a high-level management role with a balanced life? Are there actually opportunities for part-time or job-sharing? Are employers missing out on great talent by overlooking the impact that flexible work conditions can have when job seekers are making employment decisions?
There are many reasons why people are changing their attitudes to work and looking outside the traditional nine to five to fulfill their lives. There is a new generation of workers who are accustomed to a fast-changing environment and a high degree of volatility. They've never had "a job for life" and don’t expect one. But the flip side is that for these people work isn’t the be all and end all. They don’t want to live for work but rather work to live.
These people are looking for flexibility to follow their own passions whether it is writing a novel, starting a family or pursuing further study. Some are just sick of the rat race and want some time out from the incessant pressure that our modern world now deems normal. There are growing numbers of people who are disillusioned with corporate life and want a more healthy balance between work and play.
This desire for a work-life balance is here to stay. In a survey we conducted an overwhelming 87% of interviewed candidates said that they would sacrifice salary for work-life balance.
There is also a proportion of women returning to work after having children and being out of the corporate world for several years. This has an even greater impact as many people are now choosing to start families later in life. With changing social attitudes and medical advances women are having babies well into their thirties or later. It has changed the demographics of the workforce. Now women have time to establish their careers in senior roles and as such return to the job market with up to a decade or more of experience. They want to be a contributing member of a team even though many of these women don’t want to or can’t work full-time. We will lose a lot of talent if we don’t work out creative ways to attract them back into the workforce.
And it’s not just women who want flexible hours. We have also found that there is an increasing demand from men who are interested in cutting back to spend more time with their families and share the responsibility of childcare. Stay-at-home dads are certainly not the norm but they are on the increase.
But of course there aren’t too many senior roles that are only part-time. If senior professionals are looking for a sea change do they have to give up their dreams of a three-day week? Maybe not. There is another factor at play–the war for talent. Currently there is a shortage of experienced professionals in the job market. Organizations no longer have the traditional breadth of choice as the talent pool has dried up. Employers may have to change their attitudes and offer greater flexibility to find talented personnel. This is the challenge of a dynamic workforce.
Many small to medium companies have been able to take advantage of this change by reassessing their employment policies and offering flexible working conditions. They use this as a key selling point to attract good professionals to join their teams. The increasing number of highly qualified people, who only want to work part-time, is an untapped market.
Many organizations seem to have a deeply ingrained negative attitude to the concept of part-time staff. Part of this attitude may come from an unfounded belief that part-timers are not committed to the company or don’t work as hard. It’s important to remember that senior people are used to delivering objectives and just because they are working part-time doesn’t mean they still can’t do this. In fact often they can be more efficient, if tasks have a realistic time frame, because there is only a limited time in which to achieve these objectives.
And part-time doesn’t have to mean two-days a week. It may be four-days a week or five short days a week. It’s all negotiable. In our experience we have seen that contractors are the employees that have been offered these benefits. Because contractors are required urgently to fulfill a specific assignment they can often negotiate non-traditional terms. If these same benefits were offered to the permanent staff there may possibly be a rise in productivity and a happier corporate culture. These changes don’t even have to be that drastic. One company we know has taken “casual Friday” to a whole new level. They made it compulsory for all staff to close up shop at noon every Friday. This may seem like a radical step but the benefits far out weigh the costs.
We’ve taken this lesson to heart with our own business. Just to give you an idea of how it can work, take a snapshot of our team. We have two staff members who job share, several part-time employees and everyone else has the choice to work a couple of days a week at home. At first trying to get my head around this non-traditional approach was difficult (especially as I come from a large corporate background myself!) but now that it’s become the norm the advantages overshadow the downside. Everyone has taken advantage of the unique company culture and structure that we provide. Our staff is positive, extremely productive and enjoys the benefits of work-life balance.
Larger conglomerates may be a bit slower to move towards this radical way of doing business. And the reality is that for many senior roles this flexibility may never be possible. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some way to create part-time or flexible hours at other levels of the organization.
We’ve always been told we can have it all but that may not be the case. It’s up to the individual to decide what’s important to them. A high profile job such as Marketing Director for a leading brand is probably not the kind of power role that can be “job shared”. On the flip side maybe there is a similar position in a smaller company that can offer part-time work and in this case they can get a more experienced person that they normally couldn’t afford. This means that companies who don’t have huge packages on offer can still employ some very talented people.
Ask yourself if your company can make some changes to tap into this growing trend for work-life balance. Is there a role that can been performed in a four-day week? Or can staff work one day a week from home? If you find talented personnel you may just be willing to make these allowances.
Here’s the bottom line–there’s a battle going on for the best talent. And the companies that are more agile in their response to this changing environment will be better able to find, and retain, the best team. And it doesn’t just have to be about the mega-package to hire a star player. In order to achieve work-life balance many people are willing to forgo the big bucks.
Talented professionals are always in demand and employers who offer greater flexibility will be better able to participate in this highly competitive job market. Work-life balance doesn’t have to be a pipedream. Make it a possibility in your company and reap the rewards.