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Survey: Tech Pros Ignoring Work-Life Balance Is a Myth (dice.com)

Posted by timothy on from the just-sleep-there-in-the-alcove dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes: Are tech professionals really willing to live on energy drinks, and sleep on office couches, in order to get the job done? For many, the answer is "no." In response to a new Dice survey (Dice link, obviously), only 5 percent of employees at technology companies said that work-life balance wasn't a top priority for them. Contrast that with nearly 45 percent of respondents who said they wanted more of a work-life balance, even if their current position made that difficult. More than 27 percent of those surveyed also characterized work-life balance in the tech industry as a "myth." It seems that, despite all those companies talking publicly about wanting to give employees a better work-life balance (complete with on-site gyms and unlimited vacation time and... stuff...), it's not really working out for a lot of people. (And that's something that people have been calling out for some time.)

2 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. It's actually cheaper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I worked at a company that did not have any set policy as to how many days you may take off for personal reasons (sickness, having major appliances replaced at home, just felt too tired, whatever).

    This policy is not only better for the individual (since they will then stop keeping track of how many days they take off, but rather have them when necessary) it is also better for the company. On average, this policy reduced the number of personal/sick days off an employee took. The old policy, which, IIRC, was a fixed 14 days, had employees keeping track of them and just using them for no reason at all, thus increasing absence for no benefit.

    Yes, some employees were sick every Friday. Eventually HR would work with them to figure out what the problem was, and they might even work out something that is better for the employee (perhaps work at home every Friday, this actually happened for more than a few employees). In the end, it was great for everyone.

    I now work at a company with a fixed number of days off (7 sick + 1 personal). Keeping track seems like it will be a pain, and it just encourages me to take that 1 personal day off (which is too few, but hey, at least my vacation made up for it) in December whether I want to or not, because otherwise, it's gone.

  2. Is the problem part the nature of the field? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is the problem part the nature of the field? Many of my colleges are like me, we work in bursts that can be anywhere from a few days to a few years. Then we take a break and have down time to recover.

    I literally can not work effectively any other way because of the shear amount of information I need to keep in my mind, it will get lost if I get distracted. By "information" I don't just mean design plans and such, at can be handled with better planning and organization. I'm talking about the creative side where I in the groove and can pull all the pieces together. There is no way I have found to organize that side of it because by its nature it's disorganized.

    The people that don't work this way are frankly not as good as us that do. They may be better balanced in life and therefore happier in the end but they won't create the quality of output that we do.