Work-life balance may not be all it's cracked up to be.
As pay increases, the value employees place on finding a happy medium between time at the office and relaxing with family and friends becomes less and less important. In fact, it's the least important factor contributing to overall satisfaction for workers earning between $40,000 and $120,000, according to a new report by job-hunting site Glassdoor.
According to Glassdoor's chief economist Andrew Chamberlain, as workers earn more, they are more willing to spend time at work and trade off their leisure time. "The stereotype of the high-paid attorney working 70 hours a week is a real thing," he said.
Compensation and benefits packages also became less important as incomes increased, the report said. At the same time, the culture and values of the organization, the quality of the senior leadership and career opportunities were more significant.
Workplace priorities change, Chamberlain said. "Increasingly, it is less about time off and more about the characteristics of the job."
While lower-income workers, or those making less than $40,000 a year, were more concerned with having a positive business outlook of the organization, work-life balance and the compensation and benefits package, employees earning more shifted their priorities toward long-term goals. They begin to put greater weight on the factors of the job that are harder to measure, Chamberlain said.
For employers aiming to build a better workplace, this means that the best investment they can make is in the culture of the company, Chamberlain added. Instead of bulking up the benefits, they should be focused on "making managers better and creating career opportunities," he said.