Many companies today have recognized their employees’ needs to balance their personal and work lives.
Many employers have responded by creating initiatives that support this awareness by not only offering time off and leaves, as well as child care support and assistance, but making it known that utilizing this time will in no way jeopardize one’s standing at one’s firm.
According to ACNielson, a global provider of marketing research information services, 56% of people around the world made New Year’s resolutions for 2007.
Of that fifty-six percent, 51% were seeking a better work and life balance (second only to those who wanted to exercise more at 62%).
That means that a full 28% of people around the world are aspiring to lead a more balanced life.
Astonishing, isn’t it?
Courtney E. Martin has an interesting article over at The American Prospect titled “Fighting Apart for Time Together: Why is all the activism for work/life balance split along gender lines?”
Ms. Martin takes the very complicated issue of work-family balance activism and makes it understandable. Here is how the discussion shakes out:
I spent a little time perusing several of the larger job boards recently and noticed that, no matter the job, there’s an increasing trend to offer a statement about the employer’s dedication to work-life and work-family support of its employees.
This statement sometimes comes in the job description, or is often included in the “about the company” section of the posting, but generally reads like this:
My PDA phone cashed it in the other day and I had to purchase a new one. I’ve spent several hours over the past 3 days getting up to speed and ensuring that all my data has transfered to the new one. I also played around a bit, much to my wife’s amusement, importing some pictures so that when my wife and kids called, I’d see their smiling faces on my phone’s display.
My daughter is a bit finicky about her photos and didn’t like the one that I chose, so I went to her MySpace page to download one that she had posted, reasoning that she’d obviously given it the thumbs up, and here’s what I found instead:
Fact: When we talk about “family friendly” companies, we’re usually thinking about working mothers, not working fathers.
Family friendly workplaces are usually characterized by discussions surrounding flexible hours, telecommuting, time off and leaves, child care support and assistance, and company culture – and company culture involves all of the aforementioned.
I’ve made several posts to this blog opining about the work-life discussion as it relates to corporations and employees. The way the debate is being shaped today, there are two conflicting formulas at work here:
For the company, Work-Life Balance boils down to this: Company = Good, Family = Bad For the employee, it looks like this: Family and Personal Time = Good, Company = Bad.
In an earlier post today, I wrote about examining our motives when it comes to buying things – goods and services – to seemingly make our lives easier.
The vicious cycle looks like this: We work hard and long, so we wind up dining out several nights a week, or we hire a service to attend to our lawn or our homes or our pets because we “don’t have enough time.” We rely upon these things, and they become integral to our new budgets. This becomes our new ‘norm.’
We then want still more, so we work even harder, finding ourselves with even less time …. The pattern goes on and on.
Check out this post from A.J. Donnison, “the grumpy developer in the corner: Retail Therapy or Low Self Esteem?
‘Retail Therapy’ refers to something many of us indulge in: the act of buying something to make ourselves feel better after working many long hours. It may seem innocent enough, but, as Adam points out, it might serve us well to examine out motives:
Tom Peters, management ‘guru’ and author of In Search of Excellence has this message for us:
“Life-work balance is pretty much an illusion if you want to make an impact in today’s economy.”
Speaking on a panel at a Leadership Forum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, Peters pointed out that executives at General Electric “arrive at the office every day at 6:15 a.m.”
According to a recent survey of worldwide senior executives conducted by the Association of Executive Search Consultants, “87 percent felt that work-life balance considerations were critical in their decision whether to join, or remain with, an employer.”
Aileen Taylor, AESC member and Managing Director of Eric Salmon & Partners Limited, observed: “For the first time in twenty plus years in the personal care market place, I am seeing candidates prepared to down-size both their salaries and their prospects within large organizations in favor of quality of life.”
Well, it’s snowing here. I find it extremely ironic that the Cleveland Indians are in town playing ball at Miller Park due to the snow storm in Ohio and because our stadium offers the protection from the elements in the form of its retractable – and close-able – roof.
I’m taking advantage of a canceled appointment or two and some snow closings to share with you some photos I snapped a few moments ago, as well as to let you all know that my life balance/ work-life balance/ work family balance doesn’t consist only of work!
Looking to land that new job or brand your company? Get blogging.
That’s Debbie Weil’s advice. You’ll find her over at BlogWrite for CEOs She was quoted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal in an article titled “How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job.”
Check out Gillian Hood-Gabrielson’s Fit for Business blog. Gillian features a Q & A with Sharon Williams, Chairperson of the Alliance for Virtual Businesses.
Ms. Williams supports what I’ve discussed with some of you when it comes to work-life balance:
“A benefit I haven’t covered is the ability to improve work/life balance. By hiring a VA, clients can systemize the business and automate its processes.
Work-life balance ranks high on our lists of deciding factors when looking for companies to work for.
What should you look for in a company when Work-Life Balance is at or near the top of your list?
Determine if work-life balance is supported by attitudes and corporate culture at all levels of the organization or is simply a Human Resources department directive.
Working Mother magazine has published its list of 100 Best Companies – The Family-Friendliest Companies in America. The list measured 7 areas of the companies’ work-life programs:
I came across an interesting report written recently by Lori Herz and Arnie Herz over at Legal Sanity titled “BEYOND BALANCE: How to Cultivate Work-Life Synergy in the Law.”
The report is written about the legal profession, but please feel free to insert your chosen profession where you read the words ‘law’, lawyer’, and/or ‘legal.’ I believe their observations ring true for many of us.
The Work-Life discussion rages hot-and-heavy. From National associations to corporate HR departments to non-profit organizations to think tanks to university work-life centers and foundations – everyone is getting involved in advancing the work-life debate.
But are all interested in achieving the true goal of work-life balance? That is,are all parties dedicated to, as the Third Path Institute rightly defines it, “assisting individuals, families, and organizations in finding new ways to redesign work to create more time for family, community and other life passions?”
