Changes In The American Workplace

 July 3, 2009

Interview with James O'Toole, author of The New American Workplace
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Mike Carruthers:
The American workplace has changed a lot in the past few decades one dramatic shift is the notion of retiring at sixty-five.

James O'Toole:
Sixty-five today is the new fifty-five and people still feel young at age sixty-five and they want to keep working and are generally disinclined to sit on the front porch in the rocker.

                James  O'Toole

James O'Toole, co-author of the book The New American Workplace ...

Part of the good news of that is too the demographic glut that we have coming up where there appeared to be a shortage of workers - I think we'll be more than taken care of by older workers who just really do want to stay on the job. So, America will not experience a shortage of workers in the next twenty years.

Another dramatic change, thirty years ago people worked nine to five and at five o'clock you went home.

You started thinking about baseball or playing with your kids or having dinner with the family. Today when you go home you've still got your cell phone on, you're still checking emails, you may even have a second job, therefore end of the workday isn't the end of work.

But interestingly James says today's workers don't complain about that lack of work/life balance.

I think that's to me one of the biggest surprises - that even though journalists seemed to be concerned with work/life balance you look at the data - and what the average American says about the work/life balance - they're not all that upset about spending more time engaged in work.

To  listen to the complete unedited interview, click here.