Bupa CEO: Work-Life Balance is a 'Problem' For Employees

According to Iñaki Ereño, CEO of Bupa, craving work-life balance is a major problem.

In an interview with Fortune, Iñaki shares: “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.”

But many employees disagree, with a Randstad survey finding that 83% of employees consider work-life balance an important factor in current or future work – with the stat outranking pay. 

Iñaki, by contrast, says he enjoys “thinking about business things on the weekends”.

“I do emails, and I read my papers and all of that,” He continues. “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.”

Instead of looking for opportunities that offer good work-life balance, Iñaki advises employees to “think about what you like doing,” and “don’t do a job that you don’t like,” to avoid being in a position where balance is needed. 

How are CEOs approaching work-life balance?

Iñaki isn’t the only CEO against work-life balance.

Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, shared in an interview that he works “from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep,” seven days a week.

He continued: “When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working. I sit through movies, but I don’t remember them because I’m thinking about work.”

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, meanwhile, has previously said that he believes work-life balance can reduce business competitiveness. 

He told the All-In podcast in 2025 that the US needs to remember they are “up against the Chinese,” – referring to the 9-9-6 model of working, where employees work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. 

While this schedule is illegal in China, "they all do it, and that’s who you’re competing against,” Eric said. 

Improving employee wellbeing

Despite this, employees are consistently reporting that a good work-life balance would support their overall wellbeing – with the four day work week often touted as a way to give people more freedom.

A Work in America survey, for instance, found that 80% of respondents believe that they would be happier and just as effective with four days at work, while results from the UK’s trial of the model found that it can offer a significant talent advantage – with employee turnover reducing by 57%.

Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom, takes this a step further, predicting that within the next five years, the workweek could be reduced to just three days. 

“I hate working five days,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m pretty sure actually we really do not need to work for five days,”

Reducing the work week, he explains, will involve further implementation of AI agents – as these agents will take on routine tasks and allow people to focus on higher-value work to ensure levels of productivity remain the same. 

“I do not think we need to work for five days because literally, we all employ so many digital agents,” he continued.