How our jobs have changed

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, April 1, 1998 by Barbara Love

While teams have filled in for middle-management gaps, one vice president told Folio:, there is a downside. "There's a desire among much younger workers to be empowered, but not necessarily to be responsible for their actions. That's part of the appeal of the team," said this source, "to be in the game but not in the blame. Where has the desire to own your own work gone?"

And, this vice president shares, there is no sense of organizational loyalty, no real trust that if I invest time, effort and energy I will be rewarded with raises, promotion and tenure. It's almost universal among young workers. They say, "I may be here a year until I can move on to something else." Of course the loyalty of the company to the employee has also changed significantly, and employees who have lived through downsizing and restructuring do not suffer from any delusions about that.

The working culture has changed

"Some of the people who would have been our future stars are choosing to go into entrepreneurial pursuits early in their careers," says deGraffenreid. "They are less willing to buy into a career of corporate workmanship. And that's changed our ability to bring in people who years ago would have directed that energy and brightness into the corporate environment. It's not just how much can we pay them. It's `Why work for you when I can launch something of my own and you'll pay me millions of dollars for it 10 years from now?'

"We like to hire people with entrepreneurial spirit," deGraffenreid adds, "so that's the problem."

Employees insist on balanced lives

Lifestyle interests are very important today, especially for young people, Folio: was told. The sacrifices that may have been acceptable to employees five years ago are no longer acceptable today. "People learned from downsizing that they need to keep their lives balanced," says Potter.

That means spending more time with family. Rice says that the idea of an on-site daycare center is still held up to be a great thing, but most people would rather have their children near home. There's much more attention to the problem. What's more, there's a huge change in the father's involvement with children. "Fathers go running out saying, `I really want to go to my son's soccer game or parent-teacher meeting,' " says Rice. "In the past they had to sneak around."

Reluctance to move is another big issue, says deGraffenreid. "I remember the time when you were offered a transfer, you went home and told your wife and you did it," he says. "Now I see people turn down jobs every day because they don't want to move."

"Because the job market is very competitive now--certainly more competitive than it was five years ago," says Hennessy, "employees are able to drive in some ways how work is going to be done. If we as a company say we can't give that flexibility, maybe another employer will."

Creative solutions--flex hours, working at home, part-time work and consulting are the order of the day at some progressive publishing companies, but still far from the norm. Says one vice president, "the nine-to-five, in-the-office mentality is dying a very slow death."