One Third of Full-Time Workers Globally Say Managing Work-Life Has Become More Difficult
WorldTalk
New global survey finds top drivers of work-life challenges are stagnant salaries and rising expenses, increasing hours, and more responsibilities at work and at home.
Following are the top findings:
1. Managing work-life is getting harder
Among the key findings, the top reason one-third of full-time employees globally say it has gotten more difficult to manage work/family in the last five years is that “my salary has not increased much, but my expenses have,” which was about tied with “my responsibilities at work have increased.” The other top 5 reasons include increased responsibility at home, working longer hours and having children.
• Illustrating the tension of dual-priorities for younger generations, about half of millennials and Gen X cited increased responsibilities at work as a leading cause, coupled with more than two in five citing increased responsibilities at home.
• Approximately half (46%) of managers, globally, are working more than 40 hour weeks and four in 10 say their hours have increased over the past five years.
• Globally, younger generations are seeing their hours increase more in the last five years at a time when many are moving into management and starting families. (47% of millennial managers reported an increase in hours versus 38% for Gen X and 28% for Boomers.)
• Of managers, full-time working parents (41%) have seen their hours increase more in the last five years than non-parents (37%).
2. Top reasons to quit: minimal wage growth, lack of advancement, excessive overtime
For companies looking to retain employees as the economy improves — and as more millennials move into management and become parents — EY’s global research looked at the leading reasons full-time workers quit. The top five reasons were: minimal wage growth, lack of opportunity to advance, excessive overtime hours, a work environment that does not encourage teamwork and a boss that doesn’t allow you to work flexibly.
• Other leading factors in the top 10 were tied to flexibility and included a “flexibility stigma” or perception that people who work flexibly or take leave will suffer career consequences, lack of workplace flexibility altogether, including an option to telecommute, and too much overnight travel.
•Parents are more likely than non-parents to mention a lack of opportunity to advance as a reason to quit, demonstrating continued career ambition after having children.
3. What do workers around the world want in a job?
• After competitive pay and benefits, the top five things employees say are very important in a potential job are: “being able to work flexibly and still be on track for promotion” which was tied at 74% with “working with colleagues, including my boss, who support my efforts to work flexibly.”
4. Economy’s impact on marriage, work, education and family planning
The economy played a significant role in the challenges full-time workers face and impacted their lives in a wide variety of ways in the last five years.
• More than one in five employees encouraged their spouse or partner to return to work and a quarter encouraged their spouse/partner not to quit or reduce hours to better manage work-life.
• Approximately 23% of workers decided not to have more children and one in five delayed having more kids.
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12 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST Q3 2015