I am really glad that Gen Yers have the chutzpah and the numbers to make workplace flexbility and work-life balance a front-and-center issue. We've seen the consequences of other people's decisions. We've seen people work overtime, weekends, and holidays for companies that then laid them off in resource actions or folded because of market circumstances. Many Gen Yers come from separated families where stress from work took its toll. The lesson? Making a living can't be more important than living a life.

What do Gen Yers want? Here's what often comes up:

• A focus on results, not just face-time
• The ability to work from home or from anywhere
• The flexibility to work when we're most effective, whether that's early in the morning or late at night

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Workplace flexibility and work-life balance weren't a Gen Y issue in the beginning. This started with working mothers who found themselves pulled between the demands of family and job. Some fathers were interested in this too, but social conventions stopped it from becoming a real issue. Gen Y of both genders care about work-life balance and flexibility, and not just because of family responsibilities.

I read a lot about work-life balance, and I talk to a lot of people who've made decisions either way. I've heard how focusing on work can become a vicious cycle: if the rest of your life suffers because of your focus on work, then it's easier to focus on work and harder to build up the rest of your life to the point where you enjoy it again. I don't mind the occasional crunch. I want a sustainable pace, and life is too short to work at a company that wants to burn me out instead of help me grow.

Initiatives for workplace flexibility and work-life balance are like the curb-cuts that make cities better for people in wheelchairs: they benefit many more people than the original targets. If you've ever rolled a stroller or a suitcase along a busy street, you know how great those curb-cuts are. Flextime, telecommuting, results-only work environments, and other initiatives aren't just about attracting and retaining Gen Y. They also help companies make the most of other people's talents: Baby Boomers phasing into semi-retirement, Gen Xers starting to raise their own families, and people who work in non-traditional arrangements.

Flexibility and work-life balance: good for everyone.

Technorati Tags: flexibility, gen-y, generation-y, millennial, work-life, work-life-balance, workplace

Quarterly performance feedback (our "3/3/1" process), including "upward" feedback for the managers from their staff - to help all of our employees rapidly grow and reduce the anxiety in our organization (everyone always knows where they stand); I have been told by many of our employees and managers that they have learned more at Bazaarvoice than anywhere else they have worked.  Our feedback is balanced (the 3/3/1 is a simple email form to document the 3 things you did well that quarter, the 3 things you could have done better, and the 1 initiative you are going to focus on as a result).  The upward feedback from staff illuminates blind-spots on our management team, many of which have never been discussed with them in previous companies because the feedback process was too poor to generate intensely constructive dialogue.

Sam Decker, myventurepad: Total Leadership and Bazaarvoice's Amazing Culture

3/3/1. The three things you did well, the three things you could have done better, and the one initiative that you're going to focus on as a result. Relentless improvement that gives you energy and opportunities to celebrate what you're doing well and envision where you want to go. Good stuff.

Check out the essay.

More thoughts: One of the things that frustrates me about the Philippines is that we've got this entire chicken-and-egg problem in the schools. Few companies do on-campus recruitment for challenging internships, so students don't get motivation or experience - which is why few companies bother to do on-campus recruitment or R&D. Programming competitions help, I guess, and we do still manage to find a couple of geeks who learn about open source and end up teaching themselves. Still...

On Technorati: development, management, hiring, hr, philippines