Key Takeaways:
Individuals seeking employment in FM these days wonder what their workload will be and if there is such a thing as work life balance. An easy definition of work life balance sets the parameters for a discussion about its status and what it means in the current work environment. Work life balance is the ability to effectively manage work responsibilities along with personal life demands without sacrificing one for the other. It sounds simple, but the discussion is more complex than the definition suggests.
An article written by Marie Unger, Chief Executive Officer for the Forbes Business Council organizes the discussion by generational tendencies which seem to dictate how most workers feel about work-life balance.
Silent Generation (1925-1945): Often called Traditionalists, this age group makes up about 1% of U.S. workers and used to be the primary workforce. Job security and loyalty tend to be among this groups’ top priorities with employment.
Baby Boomers (1946-1964): Comprising 15%of today’s labor force, Boomers typically value purpose yet also recognize the importance of conserving energy for family and personal interests. They seek harmony by maintaining engagement without sacrificing their lives outside the office.
Gen-X (1965-1980): About 31% of the workforce, Gen-Xers often balance careers with caregiving responsibilities for children and aging parents. They often appreciate set working hours and the ability to step away as needed to tend to their families.
Millennials (1981-2000): Currently the largest portion of the workforce at about 36%, Millennials consistently desire equilibrium between professional ambition and family or social life. For many, flexible scheduling, and paid time off aren’t perks—they are requirements when assessing employment options.
Gen-Z (2001-2020): At around 18% of today’s workers, Gen-Zers are shaping workplace norms with a strong focus on mental health, personal boundaries, and social connection. From their earliest days in the job market, they have emphasized protecting emotional space and avoiding burnout, considering their lives outside of work a necessity.
The Workers Rights organization supports the fact that the work life balance in 2026 is different from the historical 9-to-5 versus family time dichotomy. It has evolved into work life integration because of AI automation and the realities of the hybrid work environment. As Ms. Unger states, younger employees, particularly those that are millennials and Gen Zer’s seek work cultures that value employee mental well-being, self-care support, and life fulfillment over a climb up the corporate ladder environment.
A 2025 Deloitte survey confirms that only 60% of Gen-Zers say their primary career goal is to reach a leadership position. This is a far different goal than traditionalists proffered when they started their work careers. Millennials and Gen-Zers consider work culture that favors flex time, flexible scheduling, four-day work weeks and working remotely. They often report that they are experiencing such maladies as burnout pandemic and the need to take mental health leave. Some of these workers have aps on their phones to monitor the time spent viewing a screen voicing the need for screen abuse therapy and mandatory pauses between 24/7 connectivity.
According to a Microsoft research report, using a 40-hour output over a four-day period instead of the traditional 5-day work week increases productivity by 20%. With the growth of flexible workers dubbed “gig” employees, those who prefer freelance can sell their skills in terms of output versus hours they are willing to work. More companies are paying for activities called wellness stipends for yoga, coaching, and mental wellness counseling. It has been reported that 7 out of 10 Fortune 500 companies have these programs.
Staffing company Mondo believes in 2026 work life integration will eclipse any traditional work life balance models. Instead of seeing work and life as competing forces professionals will expect a unified approach blending family, health, and career. The bottom line here is the addition of health as a component of the formula.
A British company Calibre Search conducted a Pulse survey of 300 + FM professionals across gas, refrigeration, and electrical engineering. While the published results of the survey did not identify the age cohort of the 300+ professionals, their findings revealed:
Not every company embraces the philosophy that over-work is over-rated. The software company Rillia specifies in ads for senior engineers “please don’t join us” unless applicants are eager to work 70 hours a week in person. With months-long job searches many companies are relying on the competitive environment to weed out potential candidates and do not shy away from old-school work parameters.
These companies are not afraid to tout the fact that the early stages of employment may be a grind. While some argue that it is impractical to tell job seekers upfront that your work experience “is going to hurt,” these companies say they have come a long way from the early 2000s when employees were driving all major decisions. These companies want prospective employees to understand that while they solicit and respond to employee input, they are the ones in control of the company again.
Even progressive companies like Google have adopted a more hardline approach. The co-founder of Google announced to employees earlier this year that 60 hours of work was a sweet spot of productivity for the company. That translates to on-line meetings, after 8 pm consultations and long nights in the office. The healthcare marketing company Solace tells prospective applicants “If you are looking for work-life balance, this isn’t it.”
The historically traditional firm of McKinsey tells new associates to expect meetings outside of routine business hours and to assume projects with little or no advanced notice to interrupt their lives. When it comes to talent attraction, McKinsey has found that many prospective recruits are blindsided by the thought of working with others in different time zones around the world. The level of rigor at McKinsey has not subsided and some younger prospects will self-select out of an interview because they believe the firm does not respect a work-life balance.
While it appears generational workers are stereotyped and pigeon-holed into narrow categories, there is merit in understanding that generational differences do affect how workers view the work environment and how they affect their productivity.
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) routinely surveys workers on their views of their work environment. In 2024 SHRM revealed that poor work-life balance was one of the top three reasons individuals left their jobs. In 2025 Ranstead’s Workmonitor report stipulated that for the first time in the report’s 22-year history, work-life balance surpassed pay as the leading motivator.
In a workforce that includes multigenerational workers, managers and corporate leaders can establish corporate work environments, where dialogue and consensus-building can lead to enhanced employee satisfaction. It is not the goal to create a workplace where there is one definition of what constitutes integration of family, health, and career, but a broader spectrum of definitions that accommodates multiple groups of staff.
Marie Unger again shares some valuable insight into how FM leaders and managers can foster the integration philosophy.
Understand preferences without making assumptions. The operative word here is tendencies. Every worker has individual preferences. Having specific conversations to address employees’ goals both inside and outside the workplace is a starting point to build consensus among the various generations. These conversations often reveal more similarities than differences than the assumptions employees started with before the conversations.
Identify team preferences. Teams are the smartest resource for defining the best approaches to work for their team members. Having teams create their own definitions for what constitutes a good balance among the components of their lives based on how they work fosters a cohesive approach to their work culture
Establish which rules are tight and which ones are loose. It is important to collaborate with the company’s HR organization to obtain clarity on the degree of discretion a manager has to mold rules and regulations about work habits to an individual team or organization component’s particular needs. Different job categories within an FM organization may have greater or lesser flexibility with respect to supporting the concepts associated with work-life integration.
According to the leading HR professional organizations, employers that adapt their work environments and organization culture to achieve a more richly developed work-life integration will benefit from increased employee engagement, retention of staff and more robust innovation. Individuals in these organizations also see the benefits from aligning their work with life and not fighting to make it force-fit an idealized version of workplace success.
Stormy Friday is founder and president of The Friday Group, an international facilities services consulting firm. She is a member of the ProFMI Commission, a governance body that serves as an advisory committee for the Professional Facility Management Institute’s (ProFMI) activities.
