Look at these 2 pie graphs. They show how these 2 people spend their days, not including weekends. The one on the top shows how Emma divides up her days. She is a designer who works for a large company.
As Emma’s graph shows, the biggest portion of her day is spent working. She works an average of 8 hours a day, which is one third of her day. She gets an average of 6 hours to sleep, which is 25% of her day. That’s less sleep than Martin gets. According to his graph, he gets an average of 7 hours to sleep which is about 29% of his day. On the other hand, Martin who is engineer works more hours than Emma does. Martin averages 9 hours a day at work, compared to Emma’s 8. That’s 37.5% compare to 33%. Other factors shown in the graph included time for meals and commuting to work.
Other activities include getting dressed and household chores, such as doing laundry and paying bills. As you can see, for Martin, commuting is taking a large amount of his time. If he could reduce his commute time, he would have more time for other things. And it isn’t just the time. When the traffic is really heavy, his commute is stressful. It would be great if he could work from home one or two days a week. His life would be more enjoyable.
And looking at Emma’s graph, we see that she probably needs more sleep. Perhaps she should spend a bit less time socializing with her friends. On the other hand, socializing with her friends is something she really values. As for putting on makeup, she isn’t willing to change that. For her, exercising, socializing and staying beautiful help her deal with the stress of work. In conclusion, Emma and Martin both wish that there were more hours in the day.
This next graph shows how various factors compare in importance to 1350 job applicants. These applicants were between 20 to 25 years ago. They were asked to list which factors were most important in a good job. As the graph shows, money was the most important factor for 25% of the applicants. However, other factors are also important. The second most important factor was the work environment. In other words, for many, money isn’t everything. People want to like where they work. In fact, if we combine work Environment and Co-workers, the total is 35%. This is well above the 25% for salary and benefits. Taking together, they are more important than salary and benefits. Career path is also important, especially for younger applicants. They want to see that their job helps to build a successful career. For older workers, this may not be as important. Older workers often put the a higher value on the balance between life and work. What do you think.
