Work-life balance is an important aspect of a healthy and happy work environment. It can be seen as the budget of your hours and how you spend it. As the term work-life balance is transforming, companies can also go with the trend and work towards integration and alignment than balance. With the concept evolving, it is important to understand the direction and what it will be like in the future.
Work-life integration is the new work-life balance
Employees and employers have talked about the importance of work-life balance for years. Separating employee’s work from outside activities has been the dominant concept. The goal was to make sure work did not take too much of the employee’s time outside office while ensuring they performed at employer’s needed level.
While using the term balance creates an opposition between work and life, integration seems to offer an approach with less friction. In today’s progressive market the merging of work and life is inevitable. Therefore, employees are encouraged to align their goals and experiences to create the path that is desired to them.
The generational effect
Every generation has been addressing the concept differently. Some have focused on finding the balance by remote work options and paid time off to spend quality time with family. Millennials however who are said to take up to %75 of the workforce by 2025, seem to have a different perspective. They are leaning towards finding a career that suits their lifestyle which means life outside work. This is quite a change from the traditional ways such finding a job and then building a life around it.
Burnout is real
Isolating and sustaining an identity for each aspect of life can be challenging. The demands of our work combined with our personal and social lives means we need to learn to wear more hats and manage a portfolio of multiple identities. All the effort put into achieving satisfactory work-life balance seems to create even more stress when employees fail to accomplish it. On the other hand, moving towards integration seems to help employees with a less stressful approach. It allows them to focus on what is important to them and what suits their personality and abilities, and then build on that to create a unique career path.
HR professionals are encouraged to follow the shift in perspective. They should help businesses move towards a flexible work environment that supports employees at all life stages. They should foster the type of culture that promotes what is important to current and potential future talent pipeline. This can be employees’ interests, abilities and personalities. Also they should make sure company is investing in the right technology that realistically strengthens the integration.
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