by Jennifer Burns, Toronto Chapter, Academic Division
If I had to describe my relationship with work-life balance on Facebook, I’d say, “It’s complicated.” I’ve struggled with it for a long time, and I’m not alone. Work-life balance has been a concept in organizational development for a generation, but in practice, it has been elusive. Can it be that we’ve spent 30 years trying to solve the wrong problem?
Maybe. The very expression “work-life balance” assumes that work and life are separate, even antagonistic. I’m not sure that this is true, at least not for knowledge workers.
We live in a post-Industrial era. This new age, the Knowledge Age, demands a new model. I believe that knowledge workers should aspire to work-life integration, where work is a healthy and fulfilling part of our daily lives.
Let’s get real. There is no steam whistle signaling the end of another workday in the Knowledge Age. Knowledge is organic, frequently imperfect, and never stops. It is our work and very much a part of our lives. Balance just isn’t realistic in the current environment of rapid economic, social, and technological change. Better to strive for flexibility and resilience, both in ourselves and in our organizations. Yes, there is work that needs to get done, and there are only 24 hours in a day. But we also need to manage our energy, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for that.
If we can blend Work with Life, we will have more interesting, prosperous, and meaningful careers and lives, and our organizations, families, and communities will be better for it. That is a future worth working for.
Jennifer Burns is the President of the Toronto Chapter of SLA. As a Collection Development Manager with Baker & Taylor’s YBP Library Services, she travels extensively for work and has the luggage tags to show for it. She does her best thinking on airplanes. Jennifer can be reached at jen.ann.burns@gmail.com
The title resonated with me because I worked for over ten years at a place where everything was urgent, everything was on deadline, and everyone ate at their desks — if they stopped for lunch at all. After I was laid off (because even with all of us working at 120% capacity, the place wasn’t making it) health issues I’d been ignoring caught up with me. I slowed down and took a half-time job at a library where co-workers not only encouraged me to take time for lunch, but drew me maps of the local pocket parks; urged me to take my two legal 15-minute breaks; and generally demo’d the idea of work-life balance in a way impossible to the old workplace. I had NO IDEA how stressed I was till I’d stopped! And I find that being out in the world more — reading the whole paper rather than headlines, checking out best-sellers, going to cultural events, even just eavesdropping on public transportation — is making me a better cataloger and reference librarian because I’m catching more of the context in which my clients are seeking information. Now if I can just maintain that while making enough to live on…
Just reading this article is making me slightly stressed, because I am spending my time reading and responding rather than checking my work e-mail. I can honestly say that I don’t have a work-life balance at the moment, I don’t even have a good blend of Work with Life. Of course I know that in today’s always-connected there won’t really ever be that clear divide, but it would be nice to have what Jo has! I think that if organizations expect us to be flexible with our personal lives to do work as needed, then they should in turn be flexible with our work lives and allow us to complete personal tasks as needed – but somehow this rarely seems to happen.