‘I don’t want to be a boss’: Brazilians who want more balance between work and personal life

Photographer Paula Oliveira, 29, works at a communications agency that works with clients and, when she thinks about the next steps in her career, she says she is certain: she doesn’t want to be a boss.

Contrary to professionals who wish to reach management and board positions, she states that, often, the financial gains do not compensate for the overload.

“I don’t want to follow the leadership path, because I think it’s not worth it when I draw an overview of the salary you earn and the responsibilities you have”, explains Paula.

As she is the mother of a 1 year and 6 month old girl, Paula also looks for occupations that do not require her to stay much longer than working hours or to work on the weekend.

“I separated in December last year and my daughter stays with me 100% of the time, and I end up having more responsibility for her”, says Paula.

She came to this conclusion after receiving job offers from other agencies and turning them down to have more free time with her daughter.

“I know that in a coordination position I may have to spend more time at work. Many companies ask for this, because it accumulates a lot of activity”, he says.

“Nowadays, I value my quality of life and my health much more. I can be the best within my role, but not having a high leadership position.”

Paula is part of a relevant group of Brazilian professionals who are increasingly seeking a balance between personal life and work and plan their careers accordingly.

The research “Future of Work 2024: where we are and where we are going”, from the Possible Futures intelligence platform, with 2,011 people over the age of 16, identified that, although 27% want to earn more and have better benefits in the next two years, only 10% aspire to take on management positions.

Among the participants, 20% said they would like to work fewer hours and 12% said they want to be promoted to a new position or function, but without leading teams — a desire that was especially pronounced among participants from the so-called generation Z.

“These data show a paradigm shift,” says Angelica Mari, co-founder of Futuros Possíveis and specialist in innovation and the future.

“What does it mean to be successful? When we talk about skills that are not technical, such as autonomy, creativity and empathy, a person’s professional trajectory, to be successful, does not necessarily need to be related to a manager or director position.”

The new professional mentality reflects not only concerns about flexibility and free time, but also a reassessment of career priorities, highlights Mari.

Salary is still the most important factor when evaluating a new job, according to the expert.

However, when deciding whether to accept a proposal or remain in a position, the required workload and the autonomy to adjust working hours according to personal needs are factors that are increasingly important.

In response to this, companies have tried to shorten working hours to five days a week.

Meanwhile, a significant contingent of workers is a step behind in this search for a less exhausting professional life and wants to end the six-day work-one-day-off regime.

“It’s nothing new that people are exhausted, depressed and experiencing burnout,” says Rick Azevedo, 30, creator of the Life Beyond Work movement. He petitioned Congress to end this scale, which is still standard in many industries and retail.

“If they want to do something for workers, eliminate the 6×1 scale.”

The desire to be promoted without having the responsibility of leading a team was especially pronounced in the Futures Possíveis survey among professionals from the so-called generation Z, which includes people aged between 16 and 29, as is the case of Paula Oliveira.

This was the age group where the most people said they did not think about being a boss, 16% in total.

In comparison, among those over 50, only 7% said they wanted the same thing.

“We were taught that only work dignifies, but it is not the only thing. There is also your talent, what you like to do, this is part of who you are. Generation Z brings a lot of this speech”, says Mari.

“A lot of this comes from the previous generation saying that those who are new are not committed, but that doesn’t mean they are uncommitted, they are opening new professional routes.”

The focus of this generation is not just on the search for a job, but on opportunities that allow them to make the most of their individual skills and are in tune with their desires.

“The new generations are more focused on this aspect and more willing to leave a job when this compatibility does not exist”, says Paul Ferreira, professor of strategy and leadership at the São Paulo School of Business Administration, Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV/EAESP ).

For generation Z, success is not just a matter of reaching certain hierarchical positions. More than that, they value clarity and transparency in relation to their professional trajectory.

“They want to know clearly how their actions and efforts will lead them to certain positions in the future, and what benefits this will bring,” says Ferreira.

Furthermore, according to the professor, generation Z demonstrates a more short-term mentality, worrying mainly about their immediate satisfaction.

“Compared to the previous generation, the millennials, who were willing to do a series of things thinking ahead, generation Z is not willing to make many sacrifices in favor of career development,” says Ferreira.

“That makes a huge difference. Every time there is a possibility of change, this professional will think “does this make me happier or less happy?””.

One of the most noticeable changes in the market in reaction to the new ambitions and desires of professionals is the adoption of shorter working hours.

Some companies began testing the four-day work week, while others began dismissing employees early on Fridays, the so-called short Friday.

Ferreira says, however, that the most common adaptation at the moment is to offer the flexibility of working from home partially or fully.

“The choice between in-person, hybrid and remote work is aimed at improving productivity by better meeting employee preferences”, explains the expert, who adds that the shorter work week also aims at the same objective.

Psychologist Victória Pasqual, 25 years old, already has a three-day work schedule during the week, working ten hours a day with a one-hour lunch break.

When she previously worked at an NGO, working a 5×2 schedule, with 40 hours a week, she says she “didn’t have time for anything”.

Now an employee of a public institution in Rio de Janeiro in the area of ​​mental health, Victória says that the change in her work regime made a difference, because she can study more and have free time for her leisure activities.

This is especially important in the role he performs, managing a team of therapeutic companions for patients in the Unified Health System (SUS), which has a direct impact on his own mental health.

“I work with very painful life stories. There’s an emotional strain too,” he says.

She says that, in addition to working 11 hours a day, she spends another 4 hours on public transport to get there and back, which ends up being very tiring.

“If I didn’t have two more days off, I don’t know how I would do it. I don’t think I could work, as there are different levels of exhaustion.”

The psychologist points out that, with two free days a week, she is able to take private appointments to supplement her income and, even so, she considers her current routine to be healthier than in the past.

“It was very exhausting to get home and not have energy for anything. Today, I have two days a week to take care of other things”, says Victória.

Rick Azevedo also felt exhausted when he worked six days a week as a clerk at a pharmacy in Rio de Janeiro.

“I was never a person satisfied with just having one day off,” says Rick, who saw a video he recorded with an outburst about this routine go viral on social media.

He says that many users identified with that situation, many of them from generation Z who also did not see the point in an exhausting work day.

Seeing this dissatisfaction echo among so many people made him create the Life Beyond Work movement to call for an end to the 6×1 scale.

He also created groups on WhatsApp and Telegram, which have around 12 thousand members, where he says he receives many reports denouncing journeys that they consider abusive.

“We have an illusion that the CLT protects. But the CLT has been out of date since the last labor reform. There are workers being exploited,” she says.

To change this reality, Rick wrote a petition to Congress that has already received more than 790,000 signatures of support.

“We also ask for a change to a 4×3 shift and a reduction in the 44-week working day [adotada por algumas empresas] for 40 hours.”

Caio Oliveira, 33, from Rio de Janeiro, is one of the professionals who has experienced first hand how exhausting a 6×1 journey can be.

Working in the hotel industry and services such as bars and restaurants, he says that, for many years, he only had one day off a week and, due to repeated job changes, he went almost eight years without taking a vacation.

Caio says this affected his mental and physical health.

“I had a lot of contact with people, and I think whoever is in charge of the operation gets very tired. Not only the physical part, but also the mental part”, he says.

“Often we have to deal with problems in our lives and we have to be prepared to receive people. You sometimes have to wear a mask.”

But, at the beginning of last year, he says he took on an administrative position and started working five days a week, from Monday to Friday.

Now, he says he has a better quality of life and is thinking about going back to school, which wouldn’t be possible with the busy schedules he used to have and without having the flexibility in his schedule that his role today allows.

“I can have more time not only to take care of myself, to have my time too, my space, my home and share more time with my friends and with those I want to be close to me”, he says.

“I wouldn’t go back to how it was before under any circumstances.”