Work life Balance

How important is the issues of work life balance when it comes to decide your next career move?

With senior executives around the world complaining that their work is encroaching ever more damagingly on their personal lives, almost nine out of 10 say that work-life balance considerations are now critical in their decision whether to join, or remain with, an employer.

A survey of 1,311 executives in the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific by the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC) have revealed a sea-change in the attitudes of corporate high-flyers, with a growing number rejecting long hours and the scramble up the corporate ladder in favour of better quality of life.

More than half (53 per cent) of those questioned said they have not achieved a satisfactory work-life balance and a similar proportion (46 per cent) felt that their work-life balance had changed for the worse over the past five years.

The AESC findings confirm a trend noted last year in a global study by Burson-Marsteller and the Economist Intelligence Unit which found that more than half of senior business figures around the world would turn down the chance to be a CEO - with the impact of the role on their work-life balance the major
reason for shunning the top job.