{"id":156326,"date":"2025-11-24T02:33:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156326\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T02:33:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:33:47","slug":"work-life-balance-finally-outranks-pay-as-a-top-motivator-for-job-seekers-but-ceos-arent-sold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/156326\/","title":{"rendered":"Work-life balance finally outranks pay as a top motivator for job seekers, but CEOs aren\u2019t sold"},"content":{"rendered":"

Work culture in the U.S. is changing, and employees are fed up with five-day RTO mandates and late-night calls from their bosses. Disillusioned with corporate America\u2019s grind, they\u2019re finally putting their work-life balance<\/a> first\u2014even above a hefty paycheck.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Work-life balance is now the highest ranking factor for talent when it comes to their current or future job, according to a 2025 Workmonitor report from Randstad<\/a>. About 83% of people list it as the most important consideration\u2014right next to job security\u2014with pay ranked in third as a motivator at 82%. It\u2019s the first time work-life balance has surpassed pay as an incentive since the first Workmonitor study 22 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTalent\u2019s search for workplaces that shape around them, rather than vice versa, continues to be a strong motivator,\u201d the report notes. \u201cTheir expectations have become more multifaceted, with traditionally sought-after workplace aspects giving way to a broader distribution of priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gen Z is leading the charge for valuing work-life balance over pay<\/p>\n

In true fashion of their mission to make office life better, young people are<\/a> leading the change in expectations for employers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The gap between wanting flexibility and compensation is most stark for Gen Z, according to the Randstad report. Around 74% rank work-life balance as a top consideration, compared with just 68% who put pay first. The young generation even ranked mental health (70%) above eye-catching salaries\u2014part of their drive to ensure they\u2019re happy clocking into their jobs every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They even value remote<\/a> and hybrid schedules more than pay; about 40% of Gen Zers and millennials would take a pay cut for more flexibility about where they work, according to a 2025 LinkedIn<\/a> report. It\u2019s part of a wider shift among young professionals, dubbed \u201ccareer minimalism,\u201d<\/a> as Gen Z staffers save energy for their true ambitions outside of working hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, older staffers are all-in on sustainable schedules, too. The Randstad report finds that the importance of work-life balance and pay increases with age: 85% of baby boomers rank work-life balance as a primary consideration in jobs, while 87% rank pay as a significant consideration. A large proportion of these employees still hold work-life balance in high regard, but they haven\u2019t yet come to terms with the notion that cash is king.<\/p>\n

Everyday workers want flexibility\u2014but CEOs say it\u2019s a pipe dream<\/p>\n

Workers at the upper and bottom rungs of the corporate totem pole agree on one thing: work-life balance is extremely important when considering a job. But professionals who have assumed the throne as CEO are starkly divided on whether it\u2019s possible to be ambitious and unplug at a decent hour.<\/p>\n

Marc Randolph, the cofounder of $472 billion entertainment giant Netflix<\/a>, is one of the few highly successful entrepreneurs who are adamant<\/a> on setting work-life boundaries. He lived by a straightforward rule throughout his three-decade-long career: every Tuesday, he walked out of the office at 5 p.m. and wouldn\u2019t do work for the rest of the night. He\u2019d go to a movie, have dinner, or go window-shopping with his close friend\u2014and \u201cnothing got in the way of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve worked hard, for my entire career, to keep my life balanced with my job,\u201d Randolph wrote in an old LinkedIn post<\/a> that has recently been recirculating on social media. \u201cThose Tuesday nights kept me sane. And they put the rest of my work in perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

In what might seem unconventional for Wall Street titans, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has also advised young workers to break away from work. It\u2019s what\u2019s best for their relationships and well-being.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to have work-life balance,\u201d Dimon said to students<\/a> at the Georgetown University Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy last year. \u201cWhat we tell our people at JPMorgan is you have to take care of your mind, your body, your spirit, your soul, your friends, your friends, your health. You really have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s a large camp of CEOs and entrepreneurs who wholeheartedly disagree with the notion of work-life balance. Google cofounder Sergey Brin<\/a> and Scale AI\u2019s Lucy Guo<\/a> have lambasted the idea of clocking in at 9 a.m. and out at 5 p.m. Andrew Feldman, cofounder and CEO of $8.1 billion AI chip company Cerebras, agreed it\u2019s astonishing<\/a> that people want to have it both ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary by working 38 hours a week and having work-life balance, that is mind-boggling to me,\u201d Feldman stressed on<\/a> the 20VC podcast last month. \u201cIt\u2019s not true in any part of life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Work culture in the U.S. is changing, and employees are fed up with five-day RTO mandates and late-night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[64856,14236,72,2940,13640,64950,191,22350,499,5149,2945,1711,20314,61,60,13642,150,410,2415,1868,64855,5153,33899,2951,18416,6936,22595,2952],"class_list":{"0":"post-156326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-and-wellness","9":"tag-baby-boomers","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-careers","12":"tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","13":"tag-corporate-america","14":"tag-entrepreneurship","15":"tag-executives","16":"tag-fitness","17":"tag-flexible-work","18":"tag-gen-z","19":"tag-google","20":"tag-hybrid-work","21":"tag-ie","22":"tag-ireland","23":"tag-job-hunting","24":"tag-jobs","25":"tag-mental-health","26":"tag-millennials","27":"tag-netflix","28":"tag-personal-health","29":"tag-remote-work","30":"tag-sergey-brin","31":"tag-u-s-workers","32":"tag-work-life-balance","33":"tag-workers","34":"tag-workplace-wellness","35":"tag-young-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}