Juggling Priorities: The Epic Quest for Work-Life Equilibrium among Early Career Employees

Abstract: Due to the changing nature of employment, contemporary early career employees place more value on work-life balance than any other generation before them. Our purpose is to provide a contextual overview that identifies and illuminates some of the defining characteristics of the early career employees employed in the banking sector. The integration of the boundary and motivation theory enable us to understand how early career employees working in the banking sector navigate and manage their professional and personal roles. The symbolic interactionism approach guided our qualitative study. Through the conduction of 16 semi-structured interviews at DutchBank we succeeded to abductively retrieve significant insights. Our research makes a significant contribution by re-examining the generational shifts from a ‘live to work’ mindset to a ‘work to live’ orientation. Additionally, we answer the call to re-evaluate the existing knowledge on work-life balance in the context of the shifted motivation among early career employees. Lastly, we examine the management of boundaries among early career employees in the banking sector. Overall we offer a valuable and unique contribution to the theory development of work-life balance.