Balancing family and work life

Balancing Family and Work Life

Introduction

The expression “work-life balance” was first used in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s to describe individuals' attempts to better manage the amount of time they spent on professional versus personal life tasks (“Work-Life Balance Defined,” n.d.). Over the years, as technology and other changes have narrowed the distinction between work and home life, the concept has become even more relevant. How might the conflict between having a prosperous work and personal life impact leaders? Is it different from what business leaders experience as they confront these challenges?

This chapter examines the ways leaders attempt to create equilibrium between the amounts of time spent on work versus nonworking activities within an organization. It begins with a short review of the literature associated with leadership and work-life balance. Next, it discusses what it means to be a leader in the 21st century, where helping create workplace environments that allow organizational members to balance work and home life is just another chief executive responsibility. It then identifies a set of practices that executives can use as they weave a balanced work-life perspective into their leadership toolkit. Finally, the assignment concludes with a list of additional readings and strategies individuals can consider if they want to more naturally implement personal and professional life balance.

Discussion

In the 1970s and 1980s, the words work-life challenge was used as shorthand to refer to the fact that men and women had begun to prioritize career goals over family, friends, community affairs, and leisure activities. Today, technology extends this challenge further by connecting employees with their jobs on a 24-hour, 7-day basis. Joe Robinson, founder of Work to Live (http:/ / www.worktolive.com), In a March 2009 note on his blog indicated that “a Boston College study found that 32% of employees and 58% of managers worked on 'vacation. ' Many were wired for business on their time off via assorted laptops, cell phones and, most ominously, BlackBerry's. The e-mail pager's street handles—Crack Berry—testifies to the operative dynamic.”

General impressions about what makes for equilibrium between work and personal life have also changed over the last 30 years. A 2007 annual survey conducted by the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI) evaluated the perceptions of 10,000 U.S.-based male and female workers about work-life balance. KRI found that women are more positive than men as to their feelings about organizations' efforts to help them weigh work and home life responsibilities. These results indicate that people's perceptions about the need for work-life balance have changed significantly over the last decade. Traditionally, it was women who stated that it was more difficult to balance competing pressures at work and demands at home. Now, men are also finding that their lives are more consumed with family and other personal responsibilities and interests. To attract and retain employees, organizations of all types find they must formally develop ways of supporting equilibrium between work and home fronts (Sturges, Guest, 2004).

Multigenerational thinking is also coming into play as the new wave ...