Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Integration

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The Wall Street Journal calls it "The Juggle," which is as good a term as any. I've discovered that balancing a home life with two spouses working full-time is a setup for stress. You can have the perfect job, the perfect kids, the perfect finances, and it will still be stressful because there's simply not enough time. Any little problem will ripple through the whole family's schedule and screw things up. A family only has three choices: hire lots of help (cooking, cleaning, pickups); reduce one spouse's work hours; or just resign yourself to the stress. The economy has knocked my job down to three days a week, and although we miss the money, we don't miss the stress.

I do think that the economic climate has resulted in some employees feeling that work has to be their number one priority. And in some cases, this is probably a smart decision. However I would encourage employers to support employees with their work-life issues, as research indicates that stress and overwork lowers performance and productivity. In a time when organizations are doing more with less, I would think that would want the best from their employees - this can often be achieved when workers can exercise, eat a meal with their family and get enough sleep. See our Overwork Effective Workplace Series for more at: http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/pdfs/EWS_Overwork.pdf

If you go to a Work/Life conference (one for W/L professionals), you will hear a lot of people talking about the concept of integration rather than balance. I'm also hearing this theme "now more than ever," meaning work/life is an imperative in these stressful times.

I would like to see your ongoing dialogue about this.

We all have a number of roles that we hold throughout life. Work-life conflict occurs when time
and energy demands imposed by our many roles become incompatible with one another;
participation in one role is made increasingly difficult by participation in another.
This paper examines the effects of three types of work-life conflict: role overload (having too
much to do), work to family interference, where work gets in the way of family, and family to
work interference, where family demands (such as a child or elder care) get in the way of work.
To what extent is work-life conflict a problem in Canada and what progress has been made in
this area?
Some claim that work-life conflict has become less of a problem and that organizations have
made progress in recent years. They in part attribute this shift to an alleged increase in corporate
awareness regarding the need to focus on recruitment and retention of workers, and a perceived
shift in employee attitudes towards work. It is claimed that these changes have provided an
incentive for companies to make increased use of flexible and more family-friendly workplaces

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kapil
Business Opportunities-Business Opportunities

Lauren,

I guess its a really thin line between 'balance' and 'integration' and to some extent, also a matter of semantics. Depending on your perspective, the successful achievement of one (W/L integration for example) helps achieve the other.

I'm part of Cisco's PR team and would love to connect you with an executive who can share how the company's helping employees to achieve this fine balance through its various policies and initiatives. Let me know if you're interested.

Best,
Danielle

Call it "Work Life Hamburger" for all I care. The point is, what is your company doing to help employees enjoy their life and meet their requirements at work. If the work life community could move beyond the 'naming game' and get to the measuring results effort; then we will be doing something for the business. I'd be interested in hearing how everyone else is measuring balance...how is your corporation measuring to determine if they are maximizing the opportunity for employees to attain their balance. Let me know and let's get beyond naming what we are after.