Work-life Balance vs. Work-life Harmony
Work has always been an important part of our lives.
At some point in the past, everyone dreamed of working at a big corporation — a multinational, preferably.
As time went by, we entered the busy era. The more meetings and appointments one had, the better. It gave us the feeling of being highly important, of being essential to the company. Thankfully, now we know that “some meetings can be replaced by e-mails” and that time is our most important asset.
In fact, time is the same for everyone. We cannot buy more of it, we cannot change what has already happened, and soon everyone started to value the time spent at work, with family, with friends, and with the self.
This evolution influenced the way we set our priorities. If at some given moment, work was our main concern, we evolved to understand that that is not the only decisive factor for a fulfilling life experience.
The truth is an individual without personal satisfaction and fulfillment is unlikely to perform highly, and the search for a balance between personal and professional life became noticeably more evident, bringing up the term work-life balance.
In this concept, “life” refers to all moments of unpaid activities, such as practicing sports, domestic duties, time with family and friends, playing with the kids,…In short, any activity performed while not at work.
This new perspective came with society beginning to seek a daily balance between time spent at work and time spent outside of it.
However, as the concept unveils, it is rather hard to find balance. Acknowledging that, professionals began to feel that they would never be able to achieve this goal, since, in most cases, one side will always prevail above the other. This endless search for balance created a feeling of division and guilt as if it were permanently necessary to make up for one side.
Therefore, the need to seek alternatives, reduce negative feelings, and enhance both professional and personal experiences arose. These premises, combined with the advent of technology, set the perfect atmosphere to connect work and home. As the line that divides these universes has become increasingly blurred, it is essential to bring to the fore the search for harmony — harmony between life and work, for the sake of global success and happiness.
How should companies adapt to all these changes?
As a first step, they need to recognize that the world today is not as it was 10 years ago. The benefits demanded today go far beyond a good health plan, for instance. I mean that the focus on the employee must be increasingly greater and broader: they must be invested in as a whole.
We all know that people are looking for healthy options in the office, permission to take breaks in the middle of the day, and a comfortable and technological environment at the same time. These expenses that the company must make are, in fact, investments so that its collaborators can achieve harmony between the work and the desired personal life and can, thus, be more productive and efficient in all the spectrums of their lives.
