Flexibility or Balance?

I don’t like the term “work/life balance. “ To me balance implies that something is even, the classic two scales side by side where they are at the exact same level. In my lifetime there have been very few times where I feel my work and my life was balanced. More often than not it was quite out of balance.

In my early 20’s it was mostly about my personal life, as my professional life was pretty minimal. My first job out of college was as a receptionist. It was a fine first job, but not my most challenging career move. In my latter 20’s-mid 30’s I learned what I wanted professionally and pretty much threw myself into achieving my goals. Because my work included many weekends and holidays, I missed many an important family event, wedding of a friend, etc. Once goals are achieved, new goals need to be set. This time the goals were in my personal life so from my mid-30’s until now at 40 I worked on achieving balance. But in reality all I did was take a job I was overqualified for, spend more time on my personal life and then three years later realize that the “balance” I thought I had achieved wasn’t very challenging or fulfilling career-wise, but my personal goals had been met. Isn’t this kind of cycle what life is all about? After all, your career is part of your life and your personal goals are also part of your life so I’m not sure there will ever be balance between them. ..instead there is a constant shift in priorities.

So I prefer the word flexible. I think there needs to be flexibility between our work lives and our personal lives because after all the two intertwine. Let’s be honest, in today’s world we have no more ability to stop our personal lives during the hours of 9am to 5pm, than we do to stop coworkers from calling our cell phones before 9am or after 5pm. I know I’ve left the office to take my kid, father, husband to a doctor’s appointment – haven’t you? And as I used to coordinate the company’s trade show activities I would definitely get panicked calls from California at 9pm, because the hotel couldn’t find a reservation. But, at the time, I had flexibility in my work schedule so that if either life or work encroached on the other, it was not a big deal. I could make up for it later.

This, I firmly believe, needs to be the future of work… workplace flexibility. And I think there needs to be more discussion as to what the expectations are for workplace flexibility, because it cannot be one-sided and still be successful for anyone. Employers can’t expect employees to put their lives on hold temporarily for a big project and then not give them some “office” time to get back to their personal lives. And employees can’t expect to use “working from home” as an excuse to loaf and not get work done or not be available when needed.

Let’s start the discussion. Is it about balance or flexibility? And can employers and employees agree on some basic parameters for a balanced or flexible workplace?