It's interesting to me how work culture appears to be moving in two polar opposite directions. On the one hand you have the never-ending 24hr type jobs where you can be called any time and the line is completely blurred betweeen work and home. 60 minutes did a story on that type of job. And the people in it seem somewhat happy. Sort of. I played that type of game before and I know it's a life-breaker. On the other extreme some people are dropping out and working half time or less, whatever that means in this new world.
I find the whole state of affairs sad. It appears to me that workers have given in to management. And the workers that become the management end up feeding back into the cycle. Life needs to be a balance between work and home, and there need to be lines between the two. It's impossible to really be engaged at home when you are thinking about work, and vice versa. If that balance goes out of whack and there is too much work, or work intrudes too much, it can be maintained for a little while, but after that the home portion starts to break down, and then that breaks back into the work portions, and like an out of control top it all comes crashing to a stop. And the people that suffer are always the workers because modern management in small companies have no room to compensate for a worker that can't work predictably at 110%.
Posted by jherr at April 5, 2006 07:30 AMIt's not just small companies--it's the large ones too. It's those companies that are more concerned with the business rather than the people. Rare is the work culture where the people are as important. Perhaps just as rare is the manager/supervisor who supports work-life balance. And those companies/people are the hardest to get into and work for. Places like the SAS in North Carolina...they get it right. We're over 15,000 employees and work-life/flex-schedule/commuting issues are just now becoming important....not that managers are buying into it yet...that will take another 7 years or so!:)
Posted by: eigga49 at April 6, 2006 06:46 AMI agree that even big companies have problems. Though usually they have HR departments that are at least trying to do some things right. Like take exit interview feedback into account.
It's kind of a vicious cycle though because we all like to see our 401K numbers go up, and those numbers go up when people like us are worked to the bone. At least, that's the temporary way to get the gains. You are right, companies like SAP realize that, in the end, their employees are their most important assets.
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