And it shouldn’t be any surprise that my team and I are part of growing segment of people who are seeking a greater work-life balance. It’s not always possible to limit your workday to the typical 9-to-5 schedule, and this type of work environment allows employees to take care of personal business, when necessary, and also accomplish their tasks.
NPR recently had an article on this very topic, talking about the shift from drone-like workers who sit in cubicles for eight hours to flexible, energized employees who feel more empowered in their roles.
“U.S. labor laws are perfectly suited to 1960,” University of Minnesota sociologist Phyllis Moen told NPR. “The 40-hour workweek and 9-to-5 workday were all codified in an era when men went off to an assembly line and women stayed home.”
“We’re really in the middle of something like an industrial revolution,” she said. “But it’s a work time revolution.”
The article goes on to say:
You may have heard that millennials in the workplace are lazy and “entitled,” but sociologist Moen says that’s a bad rap. She says young workers simply don’t want to wait decades until retirement for their quality of life — an attitude that has been reinforced by the recession, as they’ve seen parents and boomer relatives lose their jobs.
“They no longer believe in the myth that working in rigid ways for long hours necessarily pays off,” Moen says. “That’s a real change.”
Another change is the degree of mobile technology young workers have grown up with.
“This generation is completely untethered. They have laptops in grade school,” says Jody Thompson, a co-founder of Culture Rx, a consulting firm that promotes a completely flexible work style. Thompson says young people today are used to getting stuff done — on their laptops, cell phones, iPods — wherever they are, whenever they want.
“Then we bring them into the work environment and we say, ‘Here’s this 6×6 square you’re going to work in, with a desktop computer,’ which to them, by the way, is a gaming computer,” Thompson says. “‘And here’s your phone with your cord. You come in at 8 and you leave at 5, and between 10 and noon, that’s when we’re creative.’”
Thompson says young workers simply can’t relate to such a system.
Do you think these are all fair statements? Will we see more and more companies adopting this more relaxed view on the workday? Would love to hear from you in the comments section.
Post by Erica Finley, digital media strategist at The Urbane Way and @Erica_Urbane on Twitter. At The Urbane Way, we specialize in social media marketing and PR and lifestyle branding. How can we help you?
Photo credit: DDfic
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