Comparably has an interesting set of survey results on which benefits (excluding healthcare) are most important.
I was most interested in what I see as a change in work-life balance over time. Here’s what I saw, in general:
- Importance of retirement (401k contribution) increases as we get older
- Need for flexibility peaks during the middle of our careers
- Vacation policy becomes less important as we get older
If you think about the typical life pattern, these all seem to make sense. As we start careers, vacation and time away from work is most important. Work is new, just having come from a school career, and preserving that work/vacation cycle seems important.
However, as we get older (and perhaps get married and have children), we’ve more integrated our work into our life. Flexibility becomes a priority. People at this age have probably worked for several different companies and have refined the type of work that fits best.
At retirement age, flexibility and retirement are equally important. As retirement looms, vacations fall down to a much lower priority. The trend from 60 to 65 shows a flip– the importance of that 401k/retirement decreases with a corresponding spike in need for flexibility.
What was most interesting to me were the changes that show up as people reach and work beyond retirement age. The priorities flip! Flexibility falls away in return for a more distinct preference for vacation time. In fact, the priority for vacation vs. flextime is almost exactly the same for an 18 year old and 68 year old.
Could all this be a statistical or sample size anomaly? Comparably’s 66+ group is by far the smallest. But there’s something intuitively powerful that the beginning of a working career is similar to the end of a career.