Vision for Work Life Balance: by Michael Koscec - Entec Corporation - Friday, December 05 2008
Recently my clients have mentioned that they have read some of the articles and research published by Dr. Linda Duxbury and others on work/life balance and have asked me "how do we operationalize this?" The question arose out of our work with companies in measuring employee engagement and organizational health.
My response to the question was that the first thing employers must realize is that work/life balance is different for everyone. For example, a young married mother with two children is facing different pressures and challenges than a middle aged employee with young adults in high school or university and aging parents. Work/life balance for a young single employee would look completely different again.
These differences are further amplified by the nature of work. I know of one couple that works in the automotive sector on the assembly line. They work for the same company. They have two pre-school children. In this particular case they were able to arrange different shifts for themselves so that one works days while the other works nights. Since finances are tight this arrangement allowed them to take turns being with their children while the other spouse was working.
