HAPPINOMETER The Series “Generation Y in the Workplace: Work-Life Balance and Intent to Leave”

The work-life balance (WLB) is a concept about the proportion or ratio that workers perceive to be optimal between time and efforts spent working and those spent away from their work for leisure and other personal activities. Compared to other generations, Gen Y (born during 1981-2004) appears more likely to desire a balance that maintains a high level of productivity in the workplace while providing flexibility to pursue the activities fulfilling their life interests outside. As retaining the talented Gen Y employee in the workplace is an issue in concerns of the human resources around the globe, this study aims to explore situation about the work-life balance of Gen Y employees and its influence on intention to leave (to resign from) the workplace of this employee group in Thailand.  Data were obtained from a large scale survey in 2013.  Totally 4,100 Thai Gen Y employees were included. The binary logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine association between the WLB factors and intent to leave of the employees. The WLB factor is classified into 3 sub-dimensions including personal life, family life and social life. Preliminary findings are that the WLB factors and other factors including those regarding perceived job satisfaction and organization satisfaction are significantly associated with intent to leave. Interestingly, the personal WLB is found significantly reduce the intent to leave while the family WLB and social WLB are, in the contrary, found as driving factors. How to balance the Gen Y employees’ work-life, optimize their potential capacity and at the same time retain the talented in the workplace is a key challenge in the discussion.

 

Moderator: Dr.Theerathorn Yoongthong