'Welcome to the new corporate America': Breaking down what flexible hours and unlimited vacation actually mean

Welcome to the ~new~ corporate America, where we try to encourage young people to embrace the 40-hour work week with promises that are too good to be true.

This TikTok, which was posted by @americanbaron and reposted by @humorous_resources on Instagram, perfectly captures how these new promises are merely tactics to lure young people back into the workforce while not actually making any fundamental structural changes to the corporate working world or providing long-term solutions to the demands of young workers.

Let's Watch Below!

So let's break this down a bit more because this is what tons of companies are doing now. They're talking a big game about their flexible working hours and their unlimited vacation days, but just as @americanbaron points out, many of these concepts are misleading. Firstly, even if you are working remotely, there is absolutely no way that your hours as a fully salaried employee will be completely “flexible.” That's because you're often expected to always be online when everyone else is. So that's not “flexible working hours,” that's just a 9-5 job. Let's call it what it is. 

Now, onto the topic of unlimited vacation days. That may sound too good to be true to some people, and that's because it is! Naturally, if you take a ton of vacation, you won't be utilized as much, and if you're not utilized as often, you are far less likely to be promoted. Moreover, people who often do get promoted are the folks who take as little vacation as possible. 

So long story short, most companies claiming to have remodeled their corporate structure in order to make things more suitable for work-life balance are still rewarding employees who adhere to the old structure. What's even more baffling to us is that management and senior leadership actually think young workers are that easily manipulated by these false promises. This is not only condescending but it also seems like it takes a lot more effort to put up this facade than to just be transparent to your employees. 

Yes, employees want perks but it's more than that. They want more freedom, agency, and transparency. They are well aware that this kind of institutional change takes time, but as long as employers remain deceptive and difficult to work for, more and more employees will quit and find better work environments. 

For more content like this, take a look at these memes and tweets for people stuck in the middle of the work week!