Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a popular opinion. In fact, I fully expect some people—especially those who strongly subscribe to today’s dominant narratives about work–life balance—to disagree. And that’s fine. Because what I’m sharing here comes from lived experience leading IT operations teams, not from motivational posters or viral threads.
The “Work–Life Balance” Conversation Has Become… Overused
Somewhere along the way, the phrase work–life balance stopped being a genuine reminder of well-being and started becoming a blanket excuse.
Not always. Not for everyone. But often enough that it affects reliability, resilience, and team dynamics.
I’ve seen cases where the phrase is weaponized to avoid dealing with:
- hard problems,
- uncomfortable realities,
- high-pressure situations,
- accountability,
- or simply the discipline required in a 24/7 service environment.
And yes—many of these patterns disproportionately show up in younger generations entering the workforce, particularly Gen-Z. Not because they’re “entitled” or “fragile,” but because their expectations of work were shaped very differently from those who grew up in earlier operational eras, where failures meant outages, penalties, and lost revenue—not just a Slack escalation.
The Reality: 24/7 IT Operations Is Not a 9–to–5 World
This is the part many don’t want to hear: IT operations will never be perfectly balanced.
When your job is to ensure uptime, reliability, and availability of systems that millions rely on, something has to give.
People expect their apps to work at midnight. Businesses expect real-time data replication. Security threats do not wait for office hours. This ecosystem simply does not respect the concept of “clocking out.” And expecting otherwise is not realism—it’s denial.
So What Should Companies Do?
1. Acknowledge the nature of operations instead of pretending it’s “just another job.”
IT operations is closer to healthcare emergency rooms than corporate desk jobs. There are rotations, escalations, post-incident analyses, and unpredictable spikes. Companies must therefore:
- create structured compensations for irregular hours,
- design proper on-call rotations,
- provide mandatory recovery periods,
- and protect against both overwork and underperformance.
2. Replace hero culture with predictable systems.
The goal is not to “push people harder.” The goal is to build a model where no individual becomes a single point of failure, including the so-called “reliable seniors.”
What Gen-Z Must Understand (and What Non-Gen-Z Must Accept)
For Gen-Z:
Your expectations of balance, purpose, and self-preservation are healthy. But they must coexist with the operational truth: “If uptime is non-negotiable, then responsibility is also non-negotiable.”
You can’t demand the stability of a Tier-4 data center while maintaining the predictability of a campus schedule.
Resilience, reliability, and accountability are not old-school values. They are professional values.
For Non-Gen-Z:
You don’t get to say “We worked 20 years without complaining; so should they.” Times have changed. Mental health matters. Technology complexity is 10× higher than it used to be.
You may be resilient—but you also learned through burnout and chaos. Expecting new generations to repeat those mistakes is irresponsible. The solution is guidance, not gatekeeping.
So How Do We Compensate Work–Life Balance in Operations?
1. Recovery > “Balance”
True balance in operations is not symmetry. It’s cycles. Intense weeks must be followed by protected downtime—not random ad-hoc leave.
2. Strong On-Call Design
Clear escalation tiers, fair load distribution, and predictable rotation. Burnout comes from chaos, not from responsibility.
3. Time-Shifting, Not Time-Reducing
People should get rest—but maybe not always during the same hours as corporate teams. A 4-day recovery after a critical incident can be more restorative than rigid 9–to–5 routines.
4. Automated Toil Reduction
Use AI, SRE principles, and clean runbooks to reduce low-value midnight work. People shouldn’t be paged for incidents that machines can self-remediate.
5. Emotional Support for High-Stress Roles
Operations can feel thankless. People need recognition, clarity, and a safe escalation culture—not blame and finger-pointing.
How Leaders Should Guide Gen-Z (and Everyone Else)
1. Provide clarity, not toughness.
Ambiguity creates anxiety. Clear expectations create confidence.
2. Teach resilience, don’t demand it.
Resilience is built through mentorship and psychological safety.
3. Give context. Always.
Gen-Z performs exceptionally well when they understand why something matters. Explain the risk, not just the task.
4. Don’t dismiss their boundaries—structure around them.
Boundaries become healthy when they are predictable, not absolutist.
5. Model the behavior.
If leaders reply at 2 AM when not on-call, the team feels forced to do the same. Leadership should embody sustainable operational culture.
Final Thought
I don’t think Gen-Z is “wrong.” I don’t think older generations were “better.” I think both sides are incomplete without each other.
Tech operations is demanding, unpredictable, and often uncomfortable. But it’s also purposeful, impactful, and deeply rewarding when done right.
The future is not about choosing between work or life. It’s about designing systems where neither must collapse for the other to exist.
Footnotes
- Harvard Business Review – Rethinking Work–Life Balance in High-Responsibility Roles
- Gartner – SRE, On-Call Models, and Workforce Well-being
- Deloitte – Gen-Z Workforce Trends Report 2024
- Google SRE Book – Eliminating Toil and Building Reliable Systems
