It was a great discussion, with a lot of awesome comments from the people who called in. If I had one complaint, it would be that the format lends itself to sound-byting more than it does in-depth discussion.
Here’s the call in a nut-shell: There’s no such thing as work-life balance. It’s about finding the blend of work and life that works best for you.
In the last issue of his newsletter, Chris Brogan noted:
Companies and departments within companies work with the mindset that they should continue existing… With this in mind, realize that the changes you want to make will always die in committee. Realize that the shifts and the adaptations that need to happen for your business to compete will rarely come from within the organization. Understand that promoting from within, while noble, is going to kill your company because you’re pushing innovation to the side.
Have you ever created a really cool program only to have it die on the vine as 20 “key-stakeholders” (man, I hate that term!) analyzed and ripped it apart? Or worse yet, they approve it, but ask you make 117 changes before it goes live. And the program with all the required changes is nothing like the program you actually created.
I can’t say I agree with Chris that changes from inside always fail. But I do think that creating something mind-blowingly innovative is very challenging, particularly if you work in HR, where we thrive on the status quo.
What’s a renegade HR pro to do? You could always do it the Cali and Jody way: Launch a small, covert pilot within the company, but swear everyone to secrecy. Then, when the program works and you have the data to prove it, seek approval to role it out to the whole organization.
It could totally blow up in your face, but it’s crazy enough that it just might work!
Planning is really important. I think a lot of blunders happen because people don’t always take the time the think through some of the obvious things-that-could-go-wrong scenarios.
But I also think that a lot of people have a tendency to over-think, over-analyze and over-plan. Sometimes, you need to learn to settle for good enough. Create a decent working model, put it out there, and make tweaks and improvements as you go along.
I wouldn’t want to buy an iPod that had a ton of errors and issues in it (though that doesn’t seem to stop Windows from putting out new versions of their software). But a new tool or resource like Twitter or Facebook or gMail? I’m more than happy to beta test that and help work the bugs out.
When you go to launch a new product or service – whether its a program for your employees, a blog for your customers, or a new product – figuring out when you need to plan for every possible situation, and when “good enough” actually is good enough, can help you actually do more stuff that matters.
I always encourage recruiters to think of job postings as a marketing tool instead of just a list of duties and job requirements. One thing I’d love to see are video job postings, featuring conversations with the recruiter, hiring manager, and maybe some of the coworkers. This could be a great way to connect with the candidate and build an employer brand.
Work/life balance is one of those annoying and overused buzzwords that finds it way on a bingo card during boring meetings.
Trying to balance your work and life implies a few things:
Work sucks, so you need to much sure you leave enough time for life.
Work and life are distinctly separate.
Does work suck? Sometimes. It doesn’t always have to, though.
And as for work and life being distinct and separate… Do you stop thinking about work at five (or whenever your shift ends)? Do you stop thinking about your family and friends when you go in to work?
I prefer to think of work and life as a blend. The key to being happy at work and in life is to find the right blend of the two. The lines are blurring, with telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, and the controversial results only work environment (ROWE).
One of the unintended consequences of giving employees sick days and not letting them work from is that people come into work when they really shouldn’t.
People want to maximize the number of days they have off, and they don’t want to spend them stuck at home while sick. I’d imagine that organizations that use a paid time off (PTO) bank with no distinctions between sick, personal and vacation time struggle with this even more.
So what happens? People come to work when they’re pretty sick – not horribly ill, but relatively sick – and spread their germs to everyone else in the office. They don’t function quite as well, and neither do the people they get sick.
Of course, they function well enough to get some work done. They’re just not top notch. Why not let them work from home?
They get to keep their time off for when they can really enjoy it. You get work continuity and a healthier workforce.
RSS
