Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research
Kathie Lingle's Work-Life Blog
Kathie Lingle's Work-Life Blog
The Juggling Act
June 1, 2007 — Welcome to my new work-life blog. I’m so excited to be entering the blogosphere on this topic. My intention as a blogger is to help everyone – whether you are an employee or an employer – gain a deeper understanding of how work, family and community intersect. Through my blog entries I want to keep you informed of work-life issues so that you can advance both your personal and organizational life in a positive direction. I hope you will visit often and engage in a productive dialogue with me and others so that you can achieve maximum success both at work and at home.
I’m not the first blogger in the work-life field. I credit Cali Williams Yost with that honor. If there are other work-life bloggers out there, step forward, because I would like to know what kind of company I am keeping in the blogosphere.
Since everyone who works is in the middle of their own rendition of a “juggling act,” I’m going to begin by defining what work-life conflict is, and the responses that employer organizations have developed to it over the past several decades.
Work-life is a term that refers to the complex and continually evolving interconnections between the worker, the workplace, the community and the family. Worker is the most obvious part of the equation. Workplace is no longer as static as the label implies, since today there may be no physical place where all workers gather to do their work. Community is where workers live and from which employers draw both customers and their labor force. Employer organizations also earn their reputation or goodwill within the community, the maintenance of which is vital to positive business outcomes. Thus, community is an important base of operations for both the employer and employee. Family is the core unit of society, the glue that holds civilization together, and the crucible for the future supply of labor and customers, the quality of which is of great interest to employers.
As a person moves through their career life-cycle, predictable tensions or conflicts arise between these domains. There is inevitable spill-over between what goes on at home or in the community and the workplace, and vice versa. These conflicts require active management for the mutual success of the employee and employers. For example, having a child is a major event that requires significant changes in the expenditure of time and energy, both off and on the job, especially (but not exclusively) for the primary caregiver. The steadily declining health of an aging parent has a similar impact. Career starters need to spend time completing their education and earning credentials, building their professional and personal networks, making their first major purchases (business wardrobe, first car, a house) and paying off loans. This is why I contend that everyone who works is a juggler, perpetually managing their way through an ever-changing variety of often conflicting priorities at the intersections of work and life. Sound familiar? What are your work-life conflicts at the moment?
Employers have responded to this reality, beginning three decades ago with the influx of great numbers of women into the paid workforce. The first work-life conflict that employers had to address was childcare. Who was going to take care of the children when mothers weren’t at home?
Over time, employer responses to work-life conflict have clustered into seven major policy areas that reflect the integration of the needs of workers, the workplace, community and family:
Workplace flexibility
Paid and unpaid time off
Dependent care (child care, elder care and caring for the employed caregiver)
Health and well-being
Community involvement
Financial support
Managing cultural challenges.
So if you are or work for an employer that offers any kind of flexible scheduling (formal or informal), or paid time off that allows you to spend time with your family or in your community, or encourages volunteering, or provides assistance with parenting information, elder care or child care issues, or arranges for on-site seminars on financial planning, or offers stress reduction intervention, or gives you paid vacation time, or unpaid leave for family or medical needs, or provides on-site convenience services, or gives loans in case of personal or family emergency, or in some other way supports any work-life conflict you or anyone else has experienced – then you have the rudiments of a work-life program.
Post a Comment Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this Weblog until the author has approved them.
Comments
June 4, 2007
Hi I am hoping I can venture into this stratosphere and ask for some help – possibly from organisations who have affiliates in places like Malaya, Indonesia and Singapore. I am based in Australia and lead one of the countries foremost work/life consultancies. We have been undertaking this work for the last 17 years and have attended conferences etc. in the United States run by AWLP – which is how I found your blog.
Later this year I am presenting at a major conference in Malaya specifically for women, which is aimed at addressing issues of balance etc. Whilst I am perfectly happy with subject matter in the presentation I am having a hard time finding examples of Best Practice organisations in the work/life area there and wondered if anyone had any experience of working in Asia or had an affiliate organisation or contact person I could call. Any suggestions are most welcome
The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of WorldatWork and its affiliate, Alliance for Work-Life Progress (AWLP).
