When you think about work, do you want it completely separated from your personal life (demonstrated in the TV show Severance), or do you not mind work and life being intertwined? Your answer lets you know whether you're a splitter (favoring the former) or a blender (favoring the latter).
According to 2023 Gallup research on the disconnect between chief HR officers and employees, 62 percent of frontline employees prefer to be splitters with a traditional 9-to-5 schedule. Although the 500 CHROs surveyed only expected 24 percent of their white-collar workers to be splitters, the reality is that 45 percent prefer a splitter lifestyle. Similarly, CHROs only expected 54 percent of frontline workers to serve as splitters, but, in actuality, 62 percent of them split their time.
Regardless of preference, Gallup reports that splitters and blenders each comprise 50 percent of the US workforce. However, the lines of a work-life balance have become more blurred in recent years. According to Gallup research, hybrid workers, who blend work and life more frequently than other workers, comprised 18 percent of the US workforce in the spring of 2020. By the spring of 2023, that number jumped to 52 percent.
