Billionaire CEO Calls Out Employees Craving Work-Life Balance: 'You Have A Problem'

While Gen Z rejects toxic hustle culture in favour of work-life balance, not every business leader is on board. Inaki Ereno, the 61-year-old CEO of health insurance company Bupa, suggests that employees who obsess over this balance might simply be in the wrong career. In an interview with Fortune, Ereno highlighted that candidates seeking work-life balance were a major red flag for him.

"When the balance of your life becomes a topic, then you have a problem. You need to like your job, to not feel that your life needs to be balanced," said Ereno, adding that while rest and recovery were essential, the continuous desire for strict boundaries indicated that the job itself was the problem.

Managing a $23 billion firm with 100,000 staff, Ereno admitted that his own work was never far from his mind, even while hitting the gym with his 23-year-old son.

"I enjoy thinking about business things on the weekends. I do emails, and I read my papers and all of that. Do I feel that that is a big pressure? No, I enjoy doing that. So I don't feel I need to think about how I balance my life," said Ereno.

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Quizzed on what advice he would give to those who constantly live for the weekend, just getting through the motions at work, Ereno said: "I think the advice here is to take some time to think about what you like doing. Don't do a job that you don't like, so then you need balance."

Ereno is not the only business leader to come up with his bold take on work-life balance. In a recent interview, Scale AI billionaire Lucy Guo also advised individuals to switch jobs if they were seeking work-life balance.

“I would say that if you feel the need for work-life balance, maybe you're not in the right work," said Guo, adding: "I love doing my job."