I‘ve been reviewing a ton of job opportunities in the last few weeks as part of my effort to return to “traditional” work. I’m taking my return to work seriously in that I don’t have time to waste applying for jobs willy-nilly. It’s ineffective, especially since I’m still operating my business and raising a family alongside my search. Plus, I see employment as a relationship worth investing time to get right. So, every job opportunity is filtered through these three criteria:
- Job-skill fit: Does my education, experience and background align with the core job responsibilities?
- Job-personality fit: Can I picture myself doing this job on a regular basis for this employer?
- Job-life fit: Will this job integrate well with the way I want to lead my life?
As you can imagine, this three-part criteria weeds out a fair number of prospective jobs and some have advised me to “cast a wider net,” or in other words, reduce my level of expectation. I find this to be an interesting employee mindset, especially when you compare it to the increasingly high expectations of employers.
For instance, yesterday I ran across an interesting position for a Marketing Manager at an interactive media company. As I read more about the job description, responsibilities and company I was intrigued. There was a definite job-skill fit and given the entrepreneurial nature of the company, job-personality fit was high as well. Then I saw this at the end of the job description, under the heading, “Additional responsibilities”:
“As much responsibility as you can handle”
“8-5 (minimum expectation)”
Here’s how this translated to me: “Forget about your life outside of work.”
Still curious to know more, I visited the company’s corporate Web site to learn about their values and philosophy. There was the usual corporate rhetoric about attracting top caliber employees, having fun in a positive, upbeat environment, and the well-worn cliche, “we work hard and we play hard.”
Clearly expectations are very high at this company, and rightly so. Companies today are operating much like many American families – less money, higher bills. They need hard working, success-driven individuals to sustain themselves in this competitive economy. Yet, in the drive to succeed some companies have adopted a self-centered employment approach that says, “You need us (this job),” rather than, “We need each other.” Conversely, some employees hold their skills for ransom, threatening to take them elsewhere (or not perform beyond the bare minimum) if their employer doesn’t meet their demands for more money, or whatever other personal need they have.
The disconnect between employer expectations and employee expectations is one that causes issues in organizational effectiveness for companies and work-life effectiveness for individuals. Kathie Lingle, executive director of Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP), describes it well as she urges employees and employers to remember the exchange relationship that connects their mutual needs, interests, and satisfaction.
The whole work-life puzzle isn’t all that complicated when we remember one basic tenant of employment: it’s a relationship. We give. We take. We unite to create something that we couldn’t have done independently. When we’re in a healthy work relationships, work-life issues are lessened to some degree because we love what we do and feel valued by our employer. Employers benefit from the health of these relationship as well because of increased employee retention, productivity and engagement, which ultimately drives their business success.
Developing a quality employment relationship is a priority for both employees and employers. So as October and the celebration of National Work & Family Month comes to a close, I urge employers, and employees alike, to reexamine how they value work-life effectiveness as a priority that holds tremendous value for us all.
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