Life Work Balance

A few years ago I was working at a company when the expression Work Life balance became popular, all the managers and supervisors were promoting a work life balance approach. It was one of those buzz phrases that come out from time to time, that capture the imagination of managers into believing that all the workers woes will be set at ease with a catchy phrase, that somehow says “we care”. Well to tell you the truth, I never like the phrase. In fact I hated it I thought it was a belittling pieces of double speak aimed at making us work more and be damn happy we had a job.

What set me off was not the phrase so much, but the fact that the emphasis was placed on Work, not on Life. I remember bringing this up in a meeting once, when the supervisor was touting the importance of Work Life balance. I said, why don’t we start by changing it to Life Work balance and put the emphasis on Life. The response was subdued to say the least, not hostile, and for most of the workers in the meeting it was met with “hmm, interesting”. But sadly my revolutionary idea never caught on.

Currently I rarely hear Work Life balance, but occasionally it pops up when a manager or supervisor wants to sound as if they care. But the catch phrase now is, I hope I have a job or I hope I don’t get a pay cut. Work Life balance, let alone Life Work balance is no longer popular, people see that having any sort or a life outside of work is much better than having no work at all.

However, I still say that Life Work balance is the phrase that must be at our core. Remember it is work that we do to live, we don’t live to work. Guess I should write the book "Life Work Balance" because in all my searching I'm unable to find one with that title, but a whole lot to choose from with the "Work Life Balance" title.