Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Balance

A 24/7 mentality has blurred the distinctions between work and home, but employers would be wise to promote a respect for the boundaries

by Siobhan Cummins

Today's working environment, where globalization and customer demand meet head on, requires a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week culture of continuous production and service delivery. This pressure to provide superior products, information, and services is facilitated in numerous ways by technology. While workers can communicate with suppliers, customers, and clients more efficiently than ever—often exceeding consumer expectations and demands—the distinction between employees' home and work lives has blurred, and work increasingly encroaches into personal and family time.

Managers have traditionally accepted the demand to work "out-of-hours" as part of senior-level responsibilities. International assignees, too, because of their geographical location across time zones away from their head offices, have come to expect and accept disturbances outside of normal working hours. Yet, increasingly, pressure to work longer and at more off-peak hours has become headline news. In the past, the main breadwinner was typically the male partner. But with changing demographics and more dual-career couples, the responsibility for child care and homemaking is increasingly being shared. There is more pressure on the time people have outside of work and how they spend it.

Employees are seeking work with companies that have good work-life balance policies in place and respect the barriers between home and work. In fact, working time has become subject to regulation at the EU level as policymakers realize the detrimental effect that work-life imbalance can have on both individuals and their families. Clearly, the concept of work-life balance in our 24/7-driven world is well-known. But is it well practiced?

Impacts on the Family

Research conducted by IRC/ORC Worldwide for the 2007 Expatriate Work-Life Balance Survey examines the impact of work-life balance for employees in a domestic context and for international assignees. When employees (international or domestically based) work hours they feel are excessive and suffer disruption to their personal or family lives, the most common result is stress, which can cause both psychological and physical ill-health. That, in turn, can mean poor or reduced performance for employers. In fact, more than 55% of survey respondents stated that they do not take all their vacation entitlement and even when on vacation, they may check e-mails or participate in conference calls.

Another finding from the study relates to how employees perceive their employers. Employees psychological contracts—the unwritten, not openly stated expectations—are damaged through weak work-life balance management, resulting in employment dissatisfaction, which can lead to poor performance and ultimately in an employee's premature departure.

For international assignees, there is also the compounding factor of family dissatisfaction, particularly with the assignment location. Research has shown that the family's ability to settle-in within the foreign environment is critical to assignment success. But often, poor work-life balance results from expatriates working long hours, disruptions through communications across time zones, and frequent international travel. These can impact negatively on family relationships, potentially leading to reduced assignment performance and even early return to the worker's home country. So what are companies and their HR executives doings to help keep the equilibrium?

Stabilizing the Work Environment

There are compelling reasons for employers to take issues of work-life balance seriously. First, employers have a duty to care for and respect their employees' mental and physical health, and should have policies in place to ensure that necessary steps are taken. Second, costs of employee turnover are high. Recruitment and training costs add up, and the challenge of maintaining productivity when staffing is in a state of flux becomes difficult.