The Challenges of Achieving Work-Life Balance in the Digital Age: A Study of Young Professionals : Exploring the Impact of New Ways of Working on Early Career Adults

Abstract: Technological advancements have paved the way for flexible working arrangements across offices globally. This has fundamentally changed the notion of how work should be conducted, causing new opportunities and challenges to arise. Traditional boundaries and status quo are being challenged by the demands of future generations entering the workforce, situating young professionals in previously unexplored situations. The physical boundaries that used to separate work from personal space are now being blurred as a result of the increased technological connectedness. This paired with the lack of organisational understanding of how flexible work arrangements influence employees' ability to achieve work-life, balance puts young professionals at an elevated risk of experiencing setbacks. Existing research into work-life balance has mainly been situated regarding the concerns of conventional families, where marriage and parenting commonly are the focus. Young professionals are inherently different to previous generations, causing them to face completely unique challenges that this research project aims at exploring. This research adopted a qualitative data collection method through a purposive sampling technique. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with Swedish young professionals in various industries obtaining white-collar jobs. The data sets were analysed using grounded theory to generate aggregated dimensions leading to the results and subsequent conclusions of this research project. The key findings of this study highlight several challenges that affect young professionals' ability to achieve a functioning work-life balance. Flexible work arrangements strongly influence both physical and mental aspects of employee well-being through the lack of stimulating social interactions. Moreover, external, and internal pressure causes traditional boundaries between personal and professional life to blur, thus complicating their ability to achieve work-life balance. Lastly, the results highlight young professionals’ lack of professional experience as an influential variable both in terms of what they value and in their (in)ability to harmonise the different spheres of personal and professional life. The findings contribute to the current discussion about work-life balance by situating the research in a Swedish context of young professionals. They largely confirm and expand upon connections between flexible work arrangements and work-life balance challenges associated with them. Organisations, individuals, and legislators all benefit from our findings emphasising the wants and needs of future generations entering the labour market longing for work-life balance.