Balanced Work before Work/Life Balance

I was reading a claim today that a good work/home life balance not only is good for the health of the individual worker but also increases the corporate health and profit of the employing organisation.

The survey, by talent development firm Morgan Redwood says that such attention to wellbeing reduces absenteeism, improves health and drives higher productivity.

And I wouldn’t knock such observations and calls for better living practices for one minute: they are huge steps in the right direction – but I would suggest that we actually push the analysis and debate a little bit further to consider even fuller benefits.

The work/life balance argument relies on the principle of Deferred Pleasure – the concept that we suffer the adversity of the workplace in order to fund the pleasure of life outside.

For far too many people, the allure of the Deferred Pleasure argument remains one of the greatest motivators for sustaining a life in employment beyond the obvious number one factor of earning a basic living.

But in our own research experience, bad and unhappy work tends to spill over into entire lives and thus seeps through a person’s entire existence, largely to the detriment of obtaining any great enjoyment.

We need to pull the calls for balance deeper back into the heart of the workplace, consider what simple things we can do to close the divide of work=bad and outside-work=bad.

Our own research indicates that places where it is good to work tend to places of good work and, conversely, places where it is bad to work tend to be places of bad work.

We argue very strongly in our corporate culture development work that organisations need to drive their beliefs and actions off a commitment to Community Contribution & Recognition to create environments which support both the better attainment of corporate goals and the achievement of higher human satisfaction.

So, yes, strive for a work/life balance, in so far as you genuinely enjoy and benefit from your leisure time – but first of all we need to ensure much more explicitly that work itself is balanced.