A Lively Work/Life Discussion – Lessons Learned

What a great hour.  There was lively discussion with many callers and guests.  I agree with Chris Ferdinandi that we only scratched the surface and deeper discussion on work/life would be welcome.

Some things I learned and the great people I learned them from:

I will now be using the term “work/life happiness” instead of work/life flexibility thanks to @ewmonster .  After all that is the goal.

To chase work/life balance is to chase mediocrity.  This idea came from Jason Seiden after the show…and the more I think about it…the more intrigued I am by it.  More on this idea here soon.

Honesty is wonderful.  Thank you Jessica Lee for saying what many HR practitioners won’t but what most of us striving for work/life happiness already know.  Asking HR about “balance”during the interview process is deadly.

Which leads to one of the best points of the night by Chris Ferdinandi.  If you find the right fit at work…and have it at home…all will be well.  And I agree, we all need to spend more time in the interview/courting process to decide what the right fit is for each of us.  Even a great company like Zappos is not the right fit for everyone.  But add to that, that we all need to have honest discussions with each other.  If we are afraid to ask questions that really matter to us as employees, how can we find the right fit?  And also, the one area I think HR truly doesn’t always get…this is a courting process.  We are interviewing you as much as you are interviewing us.  Which is where I think Gen Y makes you uncomfortable.  They are asking the tough questions and expecting answers before they’ll agree to work with you.  That’s how it should be.

Steve Boese is a master ringleader.  He managed to keep the conversation moving well, fit many, many callers into the mix and didn’t have any one person dominate the conversation.  An amazing job!  I look forward to watching HR Happy Hour grow and grow.

Finally, many thanks to all who reached out to me during and after the show.  I have been a bit frustrated with how slowly my community is building.  But this experience has shown me I am wrong.  I have built a great, vibrant community.  Perhaps you’re just not yet discussion forum people. I do think the ability to discuss all the work/life issues and many more that were brought up during HR Happy Hour on the Career Life Connection site is valuable and I will continue to work on making that happen.  But in the meantime, I know many of you are listening and supportive and I thank you!

In case you missed my tweets here is the study I mentioned by Harvard about employee engagement and work/life happiness. If you are like my husband and your attention span just cannot handle the Harvard study…this WSJ article about how working less might mean working better is a good synopsis.

Take care all…and thank you again…it was fun!