Finding The Right Job/Life Balance

Wall Street Journal, 12/4/05

More than older workers, Gen-X employees view work as secondary to their lives outside the office, these researchers say, whether that means time with their children or time to pursue a hobby. And as baby boomers, now age 41 to 59, approach retirement, employers aiming to hold on to their emerging talent should give these shifts serious thought, management experts say.

Businesses know that turnover can be costly.  One accepted method for calculating the cost of losing an employee, including the expense of recruiting, relocating and training a replacement is to multiply the salary by 1.5. The average salary for a white-collar worker in the U.S. in 2004 was $42,000, according to the Department of Labor, so replacing a departing worker could cost an employer around $63,000. Sixty percent of workers of all ages rate time and flexibility as a very important factor in retention. Only 35% of employers felt the same way.

The 2004 U.S. Job Recovery and Retention Poll by the Society for Human Resource Management found that 28% of employers in the U.S. incorporated alternative scheduling into their retention strategy, while almost 60% included salary adjustments and promotions.

The percentage of full-time wage and salary workers on flexible schedules declined to 27.5%, or 27 million workers, in 2004 from 28.6% in 2001, according to the Labor Department.