Work-Life Balance

Work-life balance is something that many people in this modern age are looking for. The most obvious symptoms of lack of balance is when either performance at work suffers due to family commitments, or the family’s upset at all the time the individual spends at work.

Many employees tend to believe that the onus is on the organisation to provide sufficient “benefits” so as to provide the employee a balance between work and other commitments, such as shorter work weeks or working hours.

But many employees tend to ignore the fact that “work-life balance” is a relatively new concept, and historically the “balance” has always weighed in more favourably for “work”, especially for men.

I think that Jack Welch showed great insight when he wrote in this book Winning:

The fact is: work-life balance concerns are actually a luxury — “enjoyed” largely by people who are able to trade time for money and vice versa. You can bet your bottom dollar that the Korean grocer who just opened his shop in New York doesn’t worry about whether he has time to get to the gym, just as you can be absolutely certain that 99 percent of the entrepreneurs in China’s huge emerging competitive workforce don’t wring their hands about working late every night.