When to start thinking about work-life balance

According to the Higher Education Authority, four out of five graduates in Ireland find themselves employed within nine months of completing their studies.

Graduation is an exciting time – you may be about to move to a new environment, implement the skills you developed in education, and access a different level of disposable income.

At the same time, there are parts of your life you might be about to sacrifice.

Working full-time, your schedule is likely to be less flexible. Hobbies and interests can become secondary, and your social circle can narrow. This is the work-life balance, and though your sacrifices might be (at least temporarily) necessary, it can benefit a young graduate to be aware of the transactional nature of their new situation.

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Simone Stolzoff is a writer, designer and workplace expert from San Francisco. Two years ago, he released the Good Enough Job, a book that tackles the work-life balance and the notion of reclaiming parts of your life lost to work. Stolzoff describes himself as a recovering workist, though if he were graduating from university now, he says there is not much he would do differently.

“The big idea of the book is about the importance of diversifying your identity,” Stolzoff says. “Especially when you’re first starting out in your career, there’s some level of paying your dues that is expected. I really like this framework from the author Cal Newport who suggests that all early career people look to build career capital, which means building skills that are valuable and rare.

“In the early days of your career, you have to be in that sort of learning, skill-building mode. The only thing that I’d add is to make sure that you’re also investing in aspects of your life beyond your work. I don’t think there’s anything wrong necessarily with prioritising your career, especially right as you come out of college, as long as you’re also carving out time for things like your relationships, your health, your interests and hobbies outside of work.”

It is one thing to be aware of your work-life balance, but another to prioritise it. Stolzoff points out that early in your career, you are unlikely to have much leverage with an employer. Trade-offs are inevitable in many lines of work, but you can at least take note of what you are willing to give up for your job.

“If you walk into an interview and say, ‘I only want to work these hours and I have these needs’, that’s not a great starting point for building a relationship of mutual trust with an employer,” Stolzoff says. “That being said, I think it’s important to understand what’s your version of a life well-lived and then think about how your career can support that vision.

“For example, if you want to live in a big city like Dublin or London or New York, you’re going to have to earn enough of an income to be able to support the lifestyle you want to lead. If you want to make a different lifestyle choice and maybe live in a place with a lower cost of living, that might take some of the pressure off having to live such a work-centric existence.

“That’s what I would advise – not necessarily to come in with demands for an employer, but trying to understand the culture of the companies or opportunities that are available to you by doing your research, talking to other people that might work at the firm and seeing if the culture of the place matches the type of lifestyle that you want to live.”

Modern workplaces often employ perks as motivational tools to incentivise workers. There are plenty of stories of petty cash being used for takeaway dinners if employees are willing to stay in the office an extra couple of hours. Big company campuses regularly offer a free canteen, gym membership or any number of recreational activities to their on-site workforce.

For a young graduate who may be moving to a new area or is just accustomed to operating on a tight budget, perks can be highly appealing. It is worth remembering, though, that a job can always disappear, and if many facets of your life are dependent on your current place of employment, you may be more beholden to your employer than is healthy.

“I don’t think these tactics are malicious,” Stolzoff says. “Things like on-site meals or cultures that incentivise employees to stay at the office a little bit later – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that necessarily, as long as, as an employee, you are cognisant of what is being offered and what is the potential cost of what is being offered.

“To make this concrete, let’s say you move away from your family and friends to a big city where you don’t know anyone for a potential job opportunity. Your inclination might be to centre your entire social life around work because they are colleagues that you spend a lot of time with and it’s an opportunity for you to have a built-in social network.

“But, at the same time, if you are eating all of your meals at the office, if you are treating the office as your go-to bar or your go-to place where you exercise, you’re depriving yourself of the opportunity to build those connections and build those relationships outside of work.”

It is not too early to start thinking about work-life balance, but it may be too early to prioritise it. Many graduates in Ireland will be desperate for a chance to work in their chosen field, and things like fulfilment and job satisfaction largely come from a place of privilege.

Ultimately, you need to earn money to afford to live somewhere and pay bills.

As the Good Enough Job explains, though, work is work.

You should be excited about a lot of things in your future – your career is just one of them.