Employees want work-life balance, but it might be a fool’s errand.
A majority of employees (83%) view work-life balance as the top motivator for staying with their current job or finding a new one, according to a report from staffing agency Randstad earlier this year. It’s the first time employees reported work-life balance as a bigger job motivator than compensation in the 22 years since the report was first published.
But some workplace experts caution HR pros against pushing work-life balance too strongly on employees because that balance might be impossible to achieve. Shark Tank entrepreneur and business leader Barbara Corcoran, for instance, says work-life balance doesn’t exist.
Why it’s not working. Work-life balance emerged in the ‘70s and ‘80s as employees sought both professional and personal success, especially women who wanted careers without sacrificing personal goals like starting a family. Work-life balance then gained traction into the 21st century as more employers offered maternity leave and wellness benefits, and established norms around a 40-hour workweek.
But, since the pandemic, the lines between work and life have blurred, said Jennifer Moss, workplace strategist and author of Unlocking Happiness at Work, and employees now have “a persistent, constant inability to bifurcate” the two.
While Covid-19 prompted more flexibility in the workplace, Moss told HR Brew there’s also been a corrosion in how employees view their work and personal lives.
“We’re finding this increase in…pajama hours, where people can’t get work done in the day, and so they look at this as this ‘fun’ work in the evening,” she said. “When we think about that as harmonious, then it’s dangerous because we’re not actually doing fun work. We’re still working.”
Before the pandemic, and especially now with return-to-office mandates, Moss said there are more “unrealized hours” lost to the workplace. From commuting, taking kids to and from childcare, waking up earlier, and getting ready in the morning, she said it takes time away from living.
Strive for harmony, not balance. Work-life balance might not be working because many employees see their personal and professional lives as a “contrast” or in “competition” with one another, Moss said. She recommends instead focusing on work-life harmony.
“Harmony, which means that both things are working in a way that is healthy, and fluid, and supporting each other and with an approach to well-being,” she said. “When I see people that really have that healthy harmony between work and life, they’re so high performing…They don’t feel like one is stealing from the other.”
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Adam Grant, organizational psychologist, author, and Glassdoor’s chief worklife expert, agrees with Moss that there’s a need for a harmonious relationship between work and life. He suggests HR pros learn the differences and benefits between work-life integration and segmentation.
Work-life integration, Grant told HR Brew, is often demonstrated by employees who don’t mind work being a larger part of their lives. “They tend to have pictures of their kids at their desk. They talk about their work at home. They invite their colleagues over for dinner,” he said. “Segmenters want none of that.”
Employees who want work-life segmentation value strict boundaries, reserve relationships and emotions for outside of work, and tend to be more task-focused while at work, he said. By contrast, segmenters are typically more satisfied with their jobs, report higher well-being, feel less stressed, and are less likely to burnout, Grant said.
What HR can do. While there are benefits to work-life integration, like happy hour with coworkers and work friendships, Grant said most US companies lean too far into work-life integration, so HR could help promote more segmentation.
“If we moved a little bit more in the segmentation direction and said, ‘Yeah, harmony is maybe a better way to talk about it because what that signals to me is my job is not going to interfere with my family, my friends, my health or my hobbies,’” he explained.
Another way HR pros can promote harmony, Grant said, is by offering benefits that align with both work-life integration and segmentation, so segmenters can still thrive in a more integrated workplace and vice versa. For instance, he said if your company has an on-site gym for employees, they could offer stipends for off-site gym memberships, too.
“When we use the term harmony,” Moss said, “It’s about not just integrating both [work and life], but actually striving for something better.”
