Does your company encourage a life outside of work?
(April Hunt ahunt@ajc.com)
Would you rank your company at the top of the list when it comes to helping you balance on-the-job demands with your desire to have a life outside of work?
Employment experts at Glassdoor.com scoured Main Street to find the top 25 companies that employees say do the best in helping them balance work and life and Atlanta-based North Highland Co. ranks No. 2 on the list.
North Highland, a consultancy that helps businesses and government agencies get the most out of their operations by streamlining processes and maximizing the use of technology and marketing strategies, ranked behind No. 1 MITRE, a scientific research and development services company, and ahead of Agilent Technologies, Careerbuilder.com, LinkedIn, Novell and other other well-known companies on the list.
Glassdoor said it wanted to find out which companies stand out because employees feel supported — if not encouraged — to work hard and take time for leisure, family and friends. It based its ranking entirely on feedback from employees over the past year.
Glassdoor said companies on the list tend to offer flexible work hours and compressed work weeks, encourage telecommuting and provide other family friendly perks.
“Companies that make sincere efforts to recognize employees’ lives outside of the office will often see the payoff when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent,” Rusty Rueff, a Glassdoor career and workplace expert, said in a statement.
One employee said of North Highland, “They’re serious about work/life balance. You really have the freedom to mold your own career path.” Another said, “You’re treated with respect and ideas are welcome from all levels within North Highland.” Several, however, knocked the company on compensation. “The main complaint at North Highland was and is compensation,” one employee told Glassdoor.
The top 25 companies on the Glassdoor list are MITRE, North Highland, Agilent Technologies, SAS, CareerBuilder, REI, National Instruments, LinkedIn, FactSet, United Space Alliance, Rackspace Hosting, Orbitz, Novell, Susquehanna International, Slalom Consulting, Discover, Morningstar, Wayfair, Citrix, Hitachi Data Systems, Southern California Edison, Bain & Co. Navteq, Gore and Fluor.
Does your employer encourage a balanced work life?
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32 comments Add your comment
anonymous
August 10th, 2012
3:13 pm
no, most assuredly not..
Trusslady
August 10th, 2012
3:14 pm
Oh, they encourage it – and then make sure you don’t!
kar
August 10th, 2012
3:27 pm
Only if they get community development credit for it.
Yeah Right
August 10th, 2012
3:28 pm
OF COURSE they encourage work life balance – on paper. In reality, their version of a “compressed” work week is 50 hours worth of work into 32 and calling it a “gift”. Of course you’ve got your smartphone on you 24/7 so are you truly “off work”???
Les
August 10th, 2012
3:29 pm
I work for Coca-Cola Corporate (Global) Quality. They definitely DO NOT advocate anything but work, work, work, and work. You work around the clock, and I still hear things like, “you’ve got to work smarter.” Work – life balance is only lip-service.
LoFlyer
August 10th, 2012
3:36 pm
My problem was my employer did not want to compensate us for being on call, the problem was this, We couldn’t go out of town, when we did get called in, they did not want to pay us for the use of our vehicles or gas, and at the end made it so difficult to recieve comp-time most of us gave up and just quietly took an afternoon off. The on-call issue was made worse as my employers salaries lagged 25 percent and we couldn’t hire qualified personal for the positions and for two years I went every other week on call.
Then we had the electronic and software issues. We were now expected to keep our black-berries on and respond to emails and tech-support issues while on vacation. But my employer also charged me if I used the phone for personal calls while on vacations.
So the answer is yes, I feel as I was abused by my employer for after-hours work.
NON-STOP!
August 10th, 2012
3:48 pm
yeah right! what are the minorities doing!
Chuck
August 10th, 2012
4:26 pm
Publically yes. In practice, absolutely not.
Seriously!!!
August 10th, 2012
4:26 pm
@ NON-STOP! What minorities are you referring to? I’m lost on that one, especially since the title of the article is: “Does your company encourage a life outside of work?”
JustBHappy
August 10th, 2012
4:44 pm
I work at an agency where the Director encourages work-life balance after experiencing a moment of downtime with their own family…. after seeing the value. Now the other department directors stress the same practice and respect the downtime of their employees. Trust me ….during duty hours they get every ounce of the 8-9-10- hours we are expected to perform… accountability and performance is high on the list of expectation. So if you have a job be happy… work hard and play even harder,
Pro Union
August 10th, 2012
4:59 pm
If my company needs me to work overtime, I get payed time and a half for it. If my supervisor talks smack to me, I file a grievance. Life is good in a union.
Tea Partier
August 10th, 2012
5:03 pm
Life outside of work is for parasites looking for a government handout. If your job doesn’t define you and isn’t the most important thing in your life, you’re an abject failure who wants to redistribute my wealth.
Eric
August 10th, 2012
5:21 pm
Not only does my company not encourage a work/life balance, my manager couldn’t give a rats behind about me personally. Not once since I have worked here for the last two years has he even once asked me about my life outside the office. What is more typical is for me to get an email from him at 5:30am on a Saturday morning, and then grief because I didn’t answer it until 9am. If this douche bag wants to work 24/7 he is more than entitled to do that, but don’t expect it from me. I work my ass off when I’m in the office, but when I’m gone I have no intention of thinking about that place for a single second. I work hard so that I can enjoy my life when I’m not at work, and it’s about time that other companies understand that. As an EMPLOYEE, I have only a limited vested interest in the success of the company, I don’t get to own a portion of the company like others. So do not expect me to work at the same level as those who get the direct benefit from owning. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that my job pays me to perform, and I most certainly do perform. But when I am out of the office, these jack rabbits need to understand that I have earned my money so that I can enjoy my life, and that doesn’t mean answering emails at 5:30am on Saturday morning. I think that once this economy begins to turn around, companies like mine will start to lose the valuable employees and will be left with the incompetent ones that can’t find a job elsewhere.
But the problem is cyclical. When jobs are scarce, employers take advantage of employees. When jobs are plentiful, employers start to kiss some butt to motivate employees who have options. We just happen to be on the downswing. I’m waiting and biding my time.
Dave
August 10th, 2012
6:27 pm
Life outside of work? HA! One typically gets two weeks vacation a year for first 8 years. If you change jobs the clock begins again so in essence an individual gets 2 weeks vacation a year. I am a Professional and yet, taking vacation while working for several companies over the years does nothing but demonstrate your disloyalty to the Company. This attitude is corporately cultural so no one takes time off or if they do, they still work. Last vacation I took was a week back in 1994, 18 years ago.
The attitude of work/life balance is certainly nice in a philosophical setting such as in a HR Continuing Education Workshop, but in the real world it doesn’t exist. Oh sure there is the Monday morning water cooler conversation about what you may have done over the weekend but the last thing that happens is “encouragement”.
The last interesting phenomenon is the Corporate promotion of “volunteerism” to the community. It makes a nice poster but you better not do it.
I am not bitter but recognize that I am a paid tool and point of profit for a Company. Nothing more. My off time adds no tangible value to the profitability of a Company, on the contrary, it is an unnecessary cost.
sasso
August 10th, 2012
6:52 pm
my company does none of this–no telecommuting, makes you work lots of overtime at regular pay, little time off…. We only get 7 days off each year (vacation and sick days total) and 3 holidays. I may move back to new jersey next year if I can find a better job. this job sucks
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Jan
August 10th, 2012
8:38 pm
Yeah, my employer encourages a work/life balance. Then tells me to do more with less, do 3 peoples’ jobs, and that I’m not productive enough. Take that vacation time you are entitled to but don’t let it interfere with getting the job done.
fdbkpvdremail
August 10th, 2012
11:15 pm
I contracted at Cox Communications and would say that the 9 to 5 hours are strictly observed by the employees. So much so, that projects are held up when the employees say they can’t meet schedules, it’s usually because they’re leaving wor. k earlyContractors, on the other hand, work longer because they’re really the ones doing the work. The employees simply review what the contractors complete. If there were no contractors at Cox Communications, no work would get done. So, from the employee side, I would bet they would say their company does encourage a work-life balance.
Med device blues
August 10th, 2012
11:26 pm
I work for a mid size company with 110 employees and we get NO vacation.
Kroger Sucks
August 11th, 2012
9:04 am
When I worked at Kroger they were the worst at work life balance. We even had to come in on Christmas Day, the only day we were closed to check the store. That meant that we had to stay close and could not visit family. We would work till 11pm then turn around and have to be at work again at 7am. All this might be ok if they paid well but they pay well below the industry average. I could go o and on about how it was so bad but dont want to bore y’all.
native atlantan
August 11th, 2012
9:38 am
I have worked for my employer over 30 years. Things have changed. It use to be like a big corporate family, but with changes in this economy, there have been changes in the workplace. We always have ethics training, HR is always there to watch. Nothing but business 8-5. They act like they care, but they dont care about personal lives. It’s nothing but “what have you done for me lately”. Years of service dont mean squat. So many folks come and go, and the veretan workers are replace by younger folks that will earn less salary. Too many admisistartive folks now do the jobs of 2 or 3 others previously. Some folks hate going to work on Mondays, or any day, but they are told they are lucky to have a job. Corporations cut and cut in order to make their profits look good to investores and stockholders, but at what price to the employees? A workplace that is nothing but a job, and most folks are too scared to let anyone in upper kmngt know how they really feel. Guess that brings us back to, how does your company feel about you and your life outside work? Im sure they act like it, or say they do, but in reality you are just a number, not a person in todays workplace and marketplace, and all that is expected or wanted from you is to do your job.
wild one 13
August 11th, 2012
10:40 am
” Work life balanced” ??? As a long time state employee, I can say without hesitation my work life is balanced. My state job is balanced with my other full time job I have to work just to make ends meet. No worries though, it’s only public safety and we all know how our govonor and our state reps feel about that.
Mark
August 11th, 2012
10:46 am
I’m self employed…so no.
reality check
August 11th, 2012
11:41 am
Aetna touts the importance of work life balance almost as much as they do their superior corporate values. Both are sheer hypocrisy.
sonria
August 11th, 2012
3:13 pm
I used to work for a company that touted its “Bring Your Whole Self to Work” philosophy and tagline and routinely made the Best Places to Work list. Right. What they really meant is they wanted work to be your WHOLE life and that they would stand over you and make you vote in the BPtW polls. And woe betide you if you didn’t vote for the employer as one of the best places to work. They paid me well, but I nearly had a nervous breakdown from the pressure and attitudes. I’ve taken a hit to my finances for quitting and finding another job, but every lost cent and lost credit point has been worth it to be out of there.
DLink
August 11th, 2012
3:34 pm
Mandatory fun time 1/yr during work hours. Don’t show up at the ball field, don’t get paid. Make of that what you will, not paid enough for fun time or medical, just the bills.
DLink
August 11th, 2012
3:50 pm
Also, since it was mentioned earlier… Strait time for overtime work, docked for hours short. I think that may be all too common nowadays, so I’ll just add that.
DLink
August 11th, 2012
4:21 pm
Just an interesting observation, I asked a fair number of people about the tax holiday to inform and learn. Without fail every single person I asked said they didn’t get paid until next weekend (as in, had no money to shop with this weekend.) I don’t like political blogs so I’ll just say that my conclusion is that the Arthur Blanks of the world may benefit from a sales tax holiday, Joe Sixpack certainly doesn’t seem to. No offense, and God bless, teachers who will be taking advantage of the holiday for the benefit of their students. Out of their own pay, of course.
Shout out for the teachers in GA. For all the Stokes, Burris, Chandler’s, Neff’s, and Appling’s of GA. We remember how you’ve done so much with so little. Do me a favor and think for just a moment of an amazing teacher in your past if you read this. Thanks.
MoCash
August 11th, 2012
6:58 pm
I wish I had some easy government job–9-5, easy work, no profit pressure, tons of benefits, holidays and an obscene pension plan. life is good for government “workers.” No wonder the states and cities are broke.
Road Scholar
August 13th, 2012
5:53 am
DLink: Have you and others ever heard of planning ahead? Saving for the future?
Road Scholar
August 13th, 2012
5:54 am
MoCash: You just go ahead and believe that stuff.
native atlantan
August 14th, 2012
11:11 pm
Have you seen the article in the AJC that shows how many hundreds of federal employees get 6 figure pensions, as well as health benefits ? Our country cant afford to keep paying those folks that have retired such large sums in the private or public sectors.