Work Life Balance - Walking the Tight Rope

I know the young kids will never believe me when I tell them that I never had an X-Box or an iPod when I was growing up in various towns across India. Somewhere along the 90's, globalization happened. Salaries started to rise. Productivity and Quality became important criteria for survival. As companies started to face competition not just from Indian companies but also global behemoths, the treadmill started. That was the beginning of corporate India's "Get In Shape" campaign. We got on to the treadmill and felt good as we saw our fat melt away. Corporate India stepped up the speed of the machine and we started to actually get in shape. These were exciting times. If you felt giddy with the speed, you were not good enough. The layoffs started to happen but the treadmill started to go faster and faster until every ounce of fat had been shed. Every extra headcount had been trimmed and outsourced. Every little piece of change that had rolled off under the bed was reached out to and put back into the balance sheet. Meanwhile we had forgotten about Corporate India that was still running on the machine.

There is no time to waste. So we have added one more TLA (Three Letter Acronym) to our vocabulary. We are finding ways of achieving WLB (Work Life Balance). So what does getting that WLB mean? Is it driven by the individual or the organization?

We all play multiple roles in our lives – that of an employee, a parent, a spouse, a friend, a sibling, a son/daughter, a neighbour etc. When any one role takes precedence and prevents tasks related to the other roles being done effectively, there is need to fine tune that balance between various roles.

As employees we all want faster promotions, more money and live the lifestyle that Bollywoood stars do. Organizations need to be more competitive and deliver more with less resources. In a growing economy like India’s salaries are going through the roof. To be ahead of the competition, we are all putting in longer hours at the workplace. How many of you still pursue the hobbies and sports that gave us so much joy and meaning when we were growing up. If we revived them today, those would rejuvenate us and prevent burnout in the workplace. WLB means being able to find the time for the roles that rejuvenate. That could mean being with family for some or listening to music or going for a trek to discover Nature.

Sometimes the problem is different. I was talking to my friend who is the head honcho of a big corporation which has put managing WLB as a key priority for every people manager. He was talking to me of his team member Soumya, who comes in late everyday because he drops his kid to day care which doesn't open until 9:15am. Then he has to go home for lunch and inevitably gets late because of traffic snarls. In the evening Soumya leaves at 5pm sharp everyday because he has to go for his evening MBA four days a week and on Fridays he takes language classes. Soumya refuses to work weekends since the "organization is telling the employees to push for Work Life Balance." His boss asks me, "Isn't Work the first part of the WLB equation?" Yet this employee will compare increments and career opportunities with all others who are busting their gut trying to meet office deadlines. Isn't that unfair, my friend asks.

When I look at my neighbour's daughter who is all of twelve and has to come back from school and immediately rush off to take Tennis/ French/ Ballet on weekdays and has to go for Karate and Theatre classes on weekends, that makes my workday seem light in comparison. Her mother told me that during summer she will take classes on creative writing as well, since she will have more time. All this is needed to make your child an all rounder I am told. Last Sunday I saw her punching her day's schedule into her cell phone as she walked in to the elevator. I am getting a PDA for my birthday, she told me.