“Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices.” – Betsy Jacobson
ORGANISATIONS THAT ARE DEEMED AS PROGRESSIVE and/or people-centred espouse the idea of work-life balance, through which each employee from the most senior manager down is encouraged to strike a balance between the seemingly ever increasing and often conflicting demands of the professional and personal aspects of his/her life.
The challenge from an organisational perspective is that the workplace has arguably been forced to place many more demands on employees than ever before. Such pressure is driven by an economic context of an ongoing desire for and pursuit of increasing levels of productivity; recessionary conditions; financial constraints; increasing competition; limited employment levels associated with interventions that seek to enhance efficiency; ever demanding customers; decreasing timelines in which to deliver products and services.
The challenge from a personal perspective is that there is less prevalence of the extended family structure that previously supported the working parent. There is increasing emotional conflict between one’s desire to advance professionally and one’s responsibility to children and/or elderly relatives; parents are increasingly grappling with societal ills that threaten to negatively influence their offspring – whether negative peer pressure, antisocial behaviour, bullying, and so on; there are ongoing pressures related to financially maintaining the requirements of family members, the household and material possessions; parents face physical and emotional fatigue as they are sandwiched between workplace and family demands; and there is an increase in health challenges that affect the quality and quantity of life as persons do not take care of themselves as much as they should while trying to satisfy these other demands.
In the midst of these seemingly opposing forces, today’s employee is often faced with a balancing (or should I say juggling) act in which he/she might be prone to ask the following rhetorical questions. How can I meet all my obligations? Is it worth being successful at work but having a poor marriage, children to whom I am a stranger or children who are led astray? Will I be satisfied making less professional progress but having more time (even if less money) to spend with my family? Can I have the best of both the professional and personal aspects of my life and still remain physically and mentally stable?
After having worked with the Productivity Council over several years, I fully agree with the need to pursue increased productivity for the benefit of the economy, consumers, businesses and employees. At the same time I am cognisant that seeking to achieve the same results with less resources or to achieve more results with the same level of resources can create its own level of stress within the workplace. Furthermore, such organisational-based stress affects and is affected by the stress posed by the employees’ personal demands.
Without in any way claiming to possess the solution to the work-life balance dilemma, I believe that both the owners of capital and employees at all levels should consider the trade-offs that will have to be considered if work-life balance is to be more than wishful thinking or a cliché. Otherwise, we might find that the only balance that our figurative scales of life have achieved is being off balance.
