The phrase “work-life balance” is widely used, but as Wayne hears on this week’s Working Week, it is also misleading.
Why? Because every individual has a unique set of work and personal realities. There’s no “right” answer, or work/life balance, it is the “fit” between work and life that really matters – and that’s something that changes countless time over the course of an individual’s life and career.
Wayne talks to Cali Yost, founder of Work+Life Fit, who starts from the premise that everyone’s circumstances are different and so top-down flexible work arrangement policies tend not to be effective. In other words, one size does NOT fit all.
As Cali explains, work-life flexibility is much more than an HR policy or perk. It’s a management strategy and philosophy that helps organisations to service customers better, manage resources smarter, work more efficiently and productively and save costs in areas such as real estate, technology, health care and energy.
No business functions have been immune from the effects of the recession, so what’s the future looking like for learning and development over the next year or two? And what does this mean for those involved with it?
That’s the subject of this week’s show as Wayne talks to Nigel Paine, who headed up the BBC’s learning and development operations between 2002 and 2006 and now has his own company focussing on creativity, innovation and learning.
As Nigel tells Wayne, the one thing that is certain is that things are going to change. Investment in learning and development will have to show a real return and demonstrate a real effect on business outcomes and performance rather than being allowed to get away with some of the nebulous outcomes that we saw in the past.
Another watchword will be speed of deployment and the integration of initiatives throughout the business. Boundary-limited elearning ‘courses’ will increasingly become things of the past as organisations cotton on to the value of environments that facilitate sharing, collaboration and informal learning.
Stress, worry, over-work and feeling unrecognised and unacknowledged
aren’t just unpleasant side-effects of an economy in recession. As Wayne hears this week from cardiologist Dr John Kennedy, they can cause serious damage to your health, too.
Dr Kennedy is author of The 15 Minute Heart Cure and medical director of preventive cardiology and wellness at Marina Del Rey Hospital. He explains to Wayne just how work stress effects cardiovascular health and what you can use to tackle it, notably with a simple technique called ” B-R-E-A-T-H” – Begin, Relax, Envision, Apply, Treat, Heal.
What should your organisation’s New Year’s resolutions be? As Wayne hears on the show this week, one key wish for 2010 is to do more about becoming an employer of choice – something most companies claim they want to be, but rather fewer actually achieve.
Wayne is joined by futurist, Joyce Gioia, President of The Herman Group, to explore what practical steps organisations can take to make themselves more appealing to potential (and existing) employees.
Ands if you don’t think this matters in a recession, think again. Because as Joyce points out, the reality of the workplace today is that many of us are “corporate cocooning” – staying put in jobs we dislike or even hate because we simply have no other choice.
Eight out of 10 of us feel over-worked and under-appreciated. And more than half plan to change jobs or careers just as soon as the economy recovers. All of which promises to make things interesting for employers as soon as the jobs market begins to pick up.
