Men seeking less work, more time with family

A survey last month of 101 senior human resources executives found several who said they’ve detected an increase in the number of men who have left their positions so they could improve the balance between their jobs and their personal lives.

Such defections have spurred many of the new corporate work/life balance programs since the early 1990s, said Bernadette Kenny, executive vice president of Lee Hecht Harrison, a New Jersey-based career management service.

“Retention concerns have led many in Corporate America to accept greater responsibility for employee well-being. But there’s often more lip service than muscle given to balance programs,” she said.

About 75 percent of the executives said their companies had work/life balance programs, but 38 percent of those said it was frowned upon to use them, and 16 percent said employees feared they would be penalized for using them.

Finances

Young investors slow mutual fund purchases

Generation X’ers are turning cautious in their investing habits and many are reducing their involvement, according to a survey.

The stock markets’ long bearishness made insurance products the most popular investment in the survey, with three-fourths of people saying they had bought one, up from 62 percent last year. Mutual funds, by comparison, were purchased by 71 percent of those polled, down from 85 percent the previous year.

Nearly a third of those polled, 31 percent, described themselves as conservative in their investments, an increase from 22 percent in 2002.

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