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RECRUITMENT
TUNBRIDGE WELLS BUSINESS MAGAZINE JULY 2024
What price can you put on work/life balance?
In his column for this month TN Recruits’ founder Neil Simmons talks about establishing personal and professional boundaries so employees can reap the best of both worlds…
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e are repeatedly told by job seekers how important work/life balance is to them. We recently placed a candidate with a leading law firm locally who made the decision to go from a higher paid role in the city in order to take on a local opportunity. They originally took the decision to leave the big smoke as they felt spending more time on themselves was more important to them than the additional salary they could command from the London market. Having sat down to calculate the difference in remuneration there wasn’t such a gulf, particularly with the cost of a train season ticket sitting at £8,000+ of their taxable income. Salaries for professional roles in and around Tunbridge Wells have really improved post-Covid but this means that the competition to secure talent has now become particularly fierce. Since 28 our candidate’s move into a local
“Since our candidate’s move into a local role, their total travel time has gone from three hours on a good day, right down to 30 minutes on average” role, their total travel time has gone from three hours on a good day, right down to 30 minutes on average. Their question to themselves prior to taking the plunge was: what would they give to have an extra 12.5 hours back per week? Let’s take a minute to just think about that number…12.5 hours per week x 46 working weeks becomes 562.5 hours per year! That’s a staggering 15 working weeks per year spent travelling, based on a standard 9-5.30 job. In today’s world where time seems to be at a premium for everyone, it feels crazy to me that anyone would want to put themselves through that - but I suppose I have a slightly biased view. I am in one particular WhatsApp group
with a number of friends who commute from Tunbridge Wells to London. There is often conversations about trains being crowded or, worse still, cancelled, which adds to their already painful journey. The outcome for our extremely happy candidate is that they are able to go to bed later, wake up at a reasonable hour, spend more time with friends and family, and on their hobbies. The biggest win of all for them is that they can now put their kids to bed at night. Our aforementioned candidate said: “This is priceless to me and I’ve been told these years pass quickly”. If you are ready for a change and would like to explore the job market in and around Tunbridge Wells, please get in touch. Our consultants are highly experienced at listening and tailoring a job search to meet the needs of professionals in and around the TN postcode. Contact TN Recruits: Call 01892 571105 Email neil@tnrecruits.com