Bridging the Gap on Work-Life Balance

Ms. JD & PAR essay contest winner Lori Johnson (1L, U. Mississippi) recounts the work/life revolution in her previous field, accounting. "Over time, the firm’s partners did recognize the importance of promoting work-life balance in the workplace. For years they had listened to clients complain about high turnover, which often resulted in client service teams comprised of entirely new faces each year. It is not hard to argue that clients are better served by continuity." --Ed.

“The problem with your generation is that you don’t have any work ethic.”

A single line from my favorite movie, Reality Bites, effectively sums up what baby-boomer managers perceive to be the problem with Millennial employees. While I agree that my generation’s work ethic is different, I do not believe that it is non-existent. I believe that the baby-boomer’s negative perception of my generation has more to do with differences in the way that we view our careers.

My baby-boomer parents, who know that I am a dedicated, driven person, could not help but scoff when I told them about the generous vacation package at my first job out of college. Three weeks of vacation for a recent college graduate seemed ludicrous to them. However, my parents were also unsympathetic when I called home to tell them that I had just completed an 80-hour workweek. My parents, like many baby-boomers, believed that a job was a job. You worked hard each week, collected a paycheck, and supported a family. Your job was not supposed to be fulfilling, and your employer certainly was not expected to accommodate your schedule or worry about your level of job satisfaction.

Millennials do not share their parents’ view of work. We do not believe that a job is just a job. We expect a career that leaves us fulfilled and gives us a sense of pride in the work we do. Therefore, I do not believe that our work ethic is inferior to that of our parents. We simply have different views and expectations of work, and as the baby-boomers begin to retire, employers are left with a younger generation of employees with a new set of job expectations. This means that employers must begin to consider the needs and desires of a new breed of employee, or run the risk of losing top talent.

Prior to returning to school to pursue a career in law, I spent four years working for a large multi-national public accounting firm.

[Continues after the jump]