Live to work or work to live?

I get the feeling that we aren’t in Kansas toto, in regards to the workforce of 5 to 10 years ago. I have worked in a variety of industries from wellness to financial services to currently in the health and wellness industry. It is fair to say that the industry’s of today are vastly different than 10 years ago. One of the big improvements in  my opinion is the workforce’s insistence on more paid time off, flex time and open work space. The time when just punching a time clock for the most part has disappeared. An employee is expected to help grow the business by participating, sharing, growing personally and by adopting core values. Company culture and workforce attitudes help shape the idea of that business. The employee culture has changed but in many organizations change is stuck.

During this past open enrollment season I witnessed an exciting environment where employees where engaged and technology employed to assist employees make decisions. Dare I use the word “Fun”? Yes it was fun to see the human resource staff holding Q&A sessions on new benefit offerings and wearing “meet-alex” t-shirts. The fun was contagious and employees came to a vendors booth with informed questions and they appeared confident and grateful just to have answers to their concerns.

The biggest take away for me was that in today’s busy business and ever changing environment it’s even more important to enjoy what you do and who you do it with than be miserable about it. For some of us that lesson took awhile to learn, better late than never. In this fast paced business environment it is vital to engage the employee in the workplace with creative, thoughtful and fun events.