Work-life balance is one of the most talked about topics and is often addressed on social media and communication channels from different points of view. Advice on how to improve this relationship between work and personal life.
But what if this approach is not the right one?
As always, let's look at some figures to understand the dimensions of the phenomenon:
67% of men (and 57% of women) have changed jobs to better balance work and family life (EY);
One of the top reasons people leave their jobs is minimal salary increases and a workplace that does not allow for flexibility (EY);
Flexible working is the third most important priority (after salary and benefits) for millennials worldwide (EY);
Around a third of professionals say it is more difficult than ever to achieve work-life balance (EY);
Working parents were found to be among those struggling the most with work-life management (EY).
From the statistics reported, it is clear that work-life balance is a sensitive and growing issue for employees around the world.
We said before: What if it is the way the problem is posed that is wrong?
If that were the case, then the solutions we seek to solve the problem would also be based on false foundations.
The way I have always thought about this issue is based on the name we have given it: work-life balance. This implies that life and work are two separate things that need to be balanced.
Words are important and the names we give to things have a huge influence on our perception of the concepts behind those names.
In this sense, on one hand, we have work (or rather work activities) and on the other hand, we have life, which is the word for activities with family, friends, sports, sleep, etc. This juxtaposition, therefore, leads us to perceive work as something alien to our life, which must fit in with it and be kept within certain limits to avoid unhappiness, stress, and burnout.
My thoughts on this aspect are the result of many reflections that have led me to rethink the issue of the name and to consider the concept misleading. In fact, work is a (rather important) part of our lives, and work activities are placed on the same scale as those in our daily lives.
Let me explain: after much reflection (and also because of the way I have structured my work) I now see my day and the things I have to do as a fully integrated series of activities relating to my personal and professional life.
For example, on any given day, my to-do list might look like this:
Review and send the report for client X;
Meet with client Y;
Take my children to school;
Prepare and send the proposal for client K;
Take my children to [some activity] and then to the newsagent to buy their favorite comic;
Writing the article for RocketWork;
Playing padel;
Shopping for groceries;
Cook dinner;
Invoicing and paying suppliers.
Of course, each day has its own peculiarities, and on some days or for some periods of time, work activities may predominate in number and duration over personal ones, or on other days the opposite may be the case. What seems indispensable is to have a complete vision of the roles and responsibilities we have and also how to prioritize all the resulting activities. The latter is defined according to the 'value' that each activity adds to what is most important at that moment.
This approach stems from Holacracy's approach to organizations, and in particular the definition of roles within the organization and the human being who fulfills different roles while still being the same person. By extending the concept and integrating professional and personal activities,
it is possible to achieve an integration of all that an individual has to do in all the roles he or she plays in both personal and professional spheres (e.g. father, son, brother, husband, friend, business developer, spokesperson, colleague, confidant, etc.).
In fact, each of us, although the same person, is called upon to play different roles at the same time. In my experience, managing and prioritizing all that these roles require brings great fulfillment and considerable motivation, even in the work environment. It also reduces stress levels, even when the hours spent on a task exceed the traditional 8 hours. Because everything is integrated into a single flow, such an approach also makes it difficult to tell how many hours are spent on professional activities and how many on personal activities, given the strong integration of the two.
This is confirmed by a study carried out by ManpowerGroup and Thrive: "What workers want: from research to realization at work" - a survey of more than 5,000 workers in five countries, including more than 1,000 in Italy - which shows that doing one's job with flexibility and an optimal balance between professional and personal activities reduces stress levels from 42% to 36%.
It is quite easy to organize your life in this way when you can decide how, where, and when you work. On the other hand, it becomes more complicated to organize one's life when the job one does or the company one works for imposes more rigidity.
It is in these contexts that the dichotomy between work and life emerges, giving rise to the concept of 'work-life balance', because it is in these contexts that work is forced to 'interrupt' our personal lives.
It is therefore necessary to make a distinction at this point:
Jobs that require you to be present during a certain time slot and force you to organize the rest of your life around it;
Activities that do not have to be carried out at a specific time.
For the first category, the debate on the short week, which has been going on internationally for a number of years (and which we will be discussing in a future article), is of particular importance.
The second category includes the vast majority of conceptual jobs. For these, it is not really relevant when a particular activity is carried out, but rather the result it achieves, i.e. the 'value' it generates. Nevertheless, many companies continue (or have resumed) to require their employees who perform this type of work to be present in the office or in front of a PC during a certain time slot when working remotely.
If we look at the above statistics or other studies on the same subject, we will never find workers who have left or are leaving their jobs to work less. The central theme in relation to job change, voluntary resignation (Great Resignation) or the more recent Quiet Quitting is the need for more flexibility. A keyword, the latter, that can be found in all the statistics and interviews.
The average person likes to work and is willing to spend many hours of their day contributing to the company they work for or to their clients. What does not work, and what leads people to stress and burnout, is the lack of ability to do this at times and in ways that best suit their priorities and changing needs (NB: this does not mean working 16 hour days indefinitely).
The ball is therefore in the companies' court to find effective ways of providing this flexibility to their employees. The companies that will be able to give each individual employee the opportunity to reconcile all the roles he or she plays in his or her life and to achieve full integration between personal and professional life will also be the ones that will be able to achieve the best results.
For these companies, the work-life debate loses all meaning and the action moves to a much higher level, capable of delivering exponentially better results.