As employees rethink the role of work in their lives, AEC firms must reconsider what long-term performance really requires.
As long as humans have been around, so has the concept of “work.” But what we mean by “work” has changed dramatically over time. As societies developed, and as new technologies reshaped how we live, work evolved as well. For the philosophers among us, so did the deeper question behind it: why do we work in the first place?
Do we live to work? Or do we work to live?
The nature of that question has only really been afforded to us because of technological and social progress. Humanity has moved from work required for daily subsistence toward work tied to growth, wealth building, identity, and purpose. From hunter-gatherer societies, to agrarian life, to the industrialized world of the last century and a half, each evolution brought new efficiency gains. Those gains changed not only how we work, but also how much room we have to question the role work should play in our lives.
As with every major technological shift, from industrialization to the rise of digital tools and now AI, each wave of innovation forces us to revisit not only how work gets done, but what we believe work is supposed to mean in the first place.
When work is directly tied to daily survival, the purpose is self-evident. When work is tied to growth, profit, and long-term wealth creation, the purpose is not always as obvious. Neither is the motivation.
How attitudes about work are changing across generations
I have often heard the refrain that the current generation does not want to work as hard as previous generations. That the work ethic is not there like it used to be. That people are less willing to sacrifice, less willing to grind, less willing to push beyond the typical 40-hour work week.
Whether or not that is actually true, or even meaningfully quantifiable, it is clear that the conversation has shifted, perhaps for the foreseeable future. For firms across the industry, this is no longer a side conversation or a generational complaint. It is a direct question leaders will need to be able to answer, and a challenge they will need to address. Understanding the mindset of today’s workforce, and what actually motivates them, has become a requirement for building and sustaining strong organizations.
When I was younger, the story around hard work was fairly straightforward. You worked hard to build a better future for the next generation. You pushed, sacrificed, and endured so your children could have more opportunity than you did. Philosophically, that ethos makes sense. It is rooted in genuine responsibility, love, duty, and a long-term view of family and progress.
But much has changed in recent decades. The economy has changed. The employee-employer relationship has changed. Housing costs, student debt, healthcare costs, family structures, and career expectations have changed. So has the level of trust many employees have in institutions, including the companies they work for. This is all in addition to broader, society-wide disruptions like the 2008 housing crash and the COVID-19 pandemic. These were not minor economic or cultural events. They were cataclysmic moments that reshaped how people viewed the economy, the workplace, institutional stability, and their own priorities moving forward.
What younger professionals want from work now
Millennials and Gen Z have not necessarily rejected the value of hard work wholesale. But many have developed a sharper awareness of the extent to which work can dictate the shape and quality of their lives. They may still want to build a better life for themselves, their children, or future children, but they also seem to place a higher value on time spent with loved ones today. On shared experiences. On health. On memory. On being present while they are still young enough, and healthy enough, to enjoy the life they are working to build.
That does not mean they are unwilling to work hard. It means many would strongly prefer to do meaningful, focused, high-quality work within a more sustainable structure than consistently push into 50, 60, or more hours a week.
And this is not just a highfalutin, holier-than-thou argument that organizations should rethink workplace expectations because of philosophical differences around work, even if those differences are valid. There are practical reasons to take this seriously.
Why long hours are not always a sign of strong performance
Burnout is real. The health risks tied to routine long hours are real. So are the consequences for families, marriages, parenting, mental health, and the basic ability to remain present in one’s own life. Psychology and workplace research have studied this extensively, including the effects of extended hours on productivity, judgment, creativity, morale, and engagement. Longer hours do not automatically mean greater productivity. At a certain point, the law of diminishing returns becomes impossible to ignore.
For firms, particularly in project-driven industries, this matters. Tired people make mistakes. Overextended teams lose creativity. Burned-out employees stop bringing their full judgment to the work. Morale erodes. The office may still be busy, but busyness is not the same thing as effectiveness.
Countless authors, thinkers, and artists over the past century have explored the relationship between work and life. The unchecked pursuit of money over family, status over memory, and achievement over presence is not a new theme. Neither is the eventual regret of not having lived enough.
The proverbial reminder remains true: you cannot take it with you.
But employees today are not only thinking about this philosophically. They are also increasingly aware of what long hours can signal about a business. For someone interviewing with a company, a culture of routine 50- or 60-hour weeks may raise real questions.
- Is the firm understaffed?
- Is project management weak?
- Is work being underpriced?
- Are client expectations unrealistic?
- Is there a lack of capacity planning?
- Is delegation poor?
- Is there not enough mid-level leadership?
- Is the incentive structure rewarding heroics over systems?
In other words, long hours may not simply signal ambition. They may signal organizational strain.
That distinction matters. There will always be seasons when people need to push. Deadlines happen. Client demands shift. Project teams sometimes need to rally. Growth requires effort, and leadership often requires sacrifice. But there is a meaningful difference between an occasional surge and a permanent operating model. If long hours are temporary, clearly communicated, and followed by recovery, employees can usually understand that. If long hours become the default culture, firms should be honest about what they are asking people to trade.
How firms can build a more sustainable model of work
The real question is not whether people should work hard. They should. The better question is whether firms are building organizations where hard work is directed, sustainable, and connected to a purpose people can believe in.
Business, and how it is run, should be an extension of one’s priorities, humanity, and community, not separate from them. The human element of the workplace should not be treated as a barrier to growth or profitability. It should be part of the conversation around how growth and sustainability can be mutually aligned.
Firms that understand this will have an advantage. Not because they are softer, less ambitious, or less performance-driven, but because they are more honest about what long-term performance actually requires.
If your firm can align business priorities with the human realities of the people doing the work, chances are you are building a stronger organization. One with better retention, more stable project teams, deeper institutional knowledge, healthier leadership pipelines, and a stronger reputation with future talent.
Work will always matter. But for firms trying to attract, retain, and develop the next generation of leaders, the question is no longer whether people are willing to work. The question is whether the work, and the way it is structured, is worthy of the life being given to it.
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Daryl Simons Jr. is a senior talent consultant at Zweig Group. Contact him at dsimons@zweiggroup.com. |