Work/Life Balance

Work/Life balance is a huge deal in the modern world of HR. We talk about the importance of work/life balance and what that looks like in the modern world of always-on internet and cells phones, and worry about burnout and overtime pay, and what we should want.

Unfortunately, it's still a reality for an awful lot of the workforce that an inability to answer an email at 9:00 PM or an unwillingness to put in ten hour days in the office shows. How many people do you know, or how many workplace cultures have you seen, where putting in long hours is seen as a badge of pride, or at least good for bragging rights?

To me, there are several issues with this. The first is that working too much has a negative impact on productivity (see here if you're interested in some of the the research), and the second is that hours worked should come a distinct second to work accomplished. Ten hours of work should not be intrinsically more valued (especially if overtime is being paid out!) than eight hours of work, unless more is being accomplished in that ten hours, which, in my experience, is often not the case. A culture that focuses on results instead of on long hours is going to be focusing on productivity- that makes much more sense, and it allows your staff to go home when they're done for the day, and stay later when something needs doing, and not burn out so badly.

I believe that the reason you see this focus on hours worked is laziness- hours worked is an easy metric, compared to the work of breaking down and assessing progress and achievements, so lazy HR leads to an hours-worked-equals-dedication focus. It's an easy trap to fall into, it's reliable, but it isn't valid, because hours worked does not equal work accomplished.

What do you think? What can you do to shift this mindset in your workplace (if it's there) and do you think you need to?

Happy Canada Day from Calgary!

For those of you who are maybe a little further afield, the city I live in, Calgary, recently suffered a disaster-flooding. Calgary is located along the confluence of two rivers, the Elbow and the Bow, and they both spilled their banks just over a week ago. There have been some pretty hard hit residential areas, as well as a fair bit of downtown. I was affected among 75,000 people who were evacuated, as our downtown condo is only a couple of blocks from the river. We were told to leave on Thursday night, and watched the TV on Friday and Saturday to see the water covering block after block.

I am very lucky. We have a fourth-floor condo, so we knew even as we left that most of our stuff would be ok. We have a storage unit in the parkade, and haven't yet been able to access it to find out the bad news, but it could have been so much worse. I have a coworker who is from High River, a town south of Calgary that suffered tremendously with flooding, who has literally lost everything except the clothes on his back. We have good friends who kindly let us stay with them for a week, and we came home to everything basically intact, aside from a rank fridge full of spoiled food, and a (presumably) flooded storage unit. We are among the lucky ones, and we've been trying to give something back to those who haven't been as lucky.

It has been a tremendous experience living here through all this, and I have to say- I'm proud of my city. Calgary handled the emergency situation calmly and with strong planning, so kudos to our city council and workers- they deserve it. Calgarians immediately stepped up and brought their A games to the situation- we had more offers of places to stay than we could possibly have used, people were posting ads on kijiji to invite displaced strangers into their homes, and the city's evacuation centres were barely used. Volunteers have flooded into affected neighbourhoods, helping people to reclaim their homes. Everywhere we go, local businesses are running programs for flood relief and collecting donations- it's been incredible. So, thank you, fellow Calgarians, for showing the world what a wonderful city we have and the dedicated people living and working in it. I am proud of all of us.

Anyone looking to help can donate to the Red Cross here.