According to Jack Welch's comment, on July 14th there is no such thing as a work-life balance, only choices. I couldn't agree more with his statement. As a young twenty-something who's married but childless, I watch my co-workers (both men and women) make daily choices about their work/life priorities. For some, that's meant leaving the workforce entirely and raising their children themselves, for others that's meant putting their kids in day care and budgeting time during the weeknights and weekends to spend with their children. Each of these situations requires sacrifices that few people inside and business attempt to discuss.
Jack Welch's comment, though controversial, hit the nail on the head. Fortune 500 companies around the world pride themselves on creating family-friendly programs for employees, but participation in these programs often comes at a cost - slower progression up the corporate ladder. Participation in these programs alone though isn't the only way to reduce the pace of your ascent, having children can handicap you in some professions such as finance and consulting. Younger, childless workers, who are eager to gain experience and quick to lend a hand, are often rewarded with increasing levels of responsibility that enable them to climb the ladder faster. These responsibilities are generally taken from more senior staff members who are unable to work late-nights or weekends due to family obligations.
How Do We Fix This?
The continuation of our society depends on us passing on our genetic material via the birth of children. For better or for worse, our responsibilities do not end there. These newborns need to be provided for, nurtured and taught how to provide for themselves. Sure parents provide and nurture their children and teach them a lot of life lessons, but the only way they can do this is if they can earn money and spend time at home. Here's where we reach the impasse.
Life is Full of Trade-offs: Is it a Balance or a Choice?
Economics teaches us so much about decision-making that it's a tragedy it's not taught in schools. Each decision we make in life has an opportunity cost associated with it. That doesn't change when you decide where to live, who to work for, who to marry or when/if to have children. These decisions close some doors and open others... there are sacrifices that must be made and opportunities to be had. What the work-life balance discussion doesn't explain to us are the different inputs, pros and cons if you will, of these decisions. In the case of work, does having children mean reducing your opportunities for advancement? In some cases yes, unless you're willing to forgo spending the time you want with your kids. It's a choice... not a balance.
Changing the Way the Game is Played
The only real way to address this issue is to focus on how we define performance. Is it the number of hours you spend in a chair? Is it the number of times you're in front of your boss? Is it the results you achieve? Most management leaders respond that business in particular is a "people" industry. Advancement in this industry is focused not on what you accomplish but who you know. In order to meet new people, you need to be able to attend meetings, events, social outings, weekend proposal gatherings etc. By building your network this way, you ensure that you're at the top of people's minds when a new opportunity becomes available. New opportunities allow you to showcase your talents and be perceived as a high-performer. High-performers are rewarded with promotions and even greater responsibilities.
This mechanism for achieving success alienates parents. Comments on other articles with this subject wish to include childless individuals who want to dedicate their time to something other than work. It is my belief that individuals with interests outside of work, i.e. volunteerism, religion, fitness hobbies meet people and network in much the same way as within job networking so these activities provide with similar benefits and help you achieve success either at your current job or with another.
So Where Does This Get Us?
It gets us to a choice. You choose to have children. You choose to work. You choose how you define success. Work-life balance comes when you understand the consequences of your choices and you balance them. Will you make CEO, have 3 kids and be a single-mom? Probably not, unless you've got some great parents or an awesome day care that's willing to watch over them for several hours a day and weekends. It's a sacrifice.
Let's begin to open the dialogue about what both women and men sacrifice to meet their idea of success. This is an individual choice - each person needs to define success for themselves, their families and work to achieve it. For some that may be a c-suite office, for others that may mean 18 kids. We need to respect that each person makes a choice. Each person makes sacrifices. Is a c-suite office outside the purview of parents? Certainly not, but people only get there by making difficult choices. From both an employer and employee perspective, we need to understand the impact choices have on career progression. We need to begin to have open and honest discussions about what it takes to get to the top. Until we learn how career progression is impacted by choices, work-life balance really will be a farce.
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I think there needs to be a fundamental shift not just in the workplace economy, but on a more macro scale.
ReplyDeleteAmerica needs to re-evaluate its opinions on parenting and child-rearing. We need to look at the affordability of daycare and the true cost of raising a child. I feel that proper child rearing is so low on America's (and by this metonym i refer to the population as a whole and the value structure proffered by it) list of priorities that it's almost off the radar completely.
A study of the current generations coexisting in society (The Veterans, Baby Boomers, GenX, GenY, the Millenials/Nexters) reveals an interesting evolution of the parent-child relationship and its effect on youth. Each generation has revolted against the previous in its unique way, and each parental generation responds accordingly.
Baby-boomers have oft been referred to as "helicopter parents" due, in part, to their constant hovering and meddling in the affairs of their children. Many sociologists attribute this extreme over-attention to the accumulation of guilt felt by the parents following years of emotional neglect. What did these boomers choose over their children? Their jobs. Boomers lived their lives and made their choices under the guiding principle of "my children will have a better life than I did" and worked their boomer butts off to make sure that happened. In making that choice, they neglected their own children who birthed such cultural phenomenon as digital pets, second life, Emo, MTV, and massively multiplayer online roleplaying games. The commonality in all of these Nexter gems? A desire for limited personal, emotional connections. Limited in the sense that the Nexters are able to distance themselves from each other (usually through a screen, be it television or computer); personal in the sense that they are connecting with real people.
What we see now is the next phase of the Nexter/Millenial revolution. Belabored as they have been by their parents' absence, Nexters moving into the worforce are demanding change - and upper management had better listen, because the last thing you want is an Emo-infused, parentally neglected, internet savvy employee going onto Second Life, World of Warcraft, Facebook, mySpace, or Twitter and severely harming your company's image.
Love this post!
ReplyDeleteBottom line for me is that choice IS balance. Making consistent choices that honor what you value is even better.
Not choosing is also a choice, although not a balanced one. Avoiding making hard choices makes us victims of circumstance and condition.
So it seems to me we need to participate in the cultural/workplace changes afoot, light a fire under our willingness to lead the change—while also working on a personal level to discover what's most important. What are the best choices we can make consciously, right now, and know that it's how we designed it, not what "happened" to us.
2 cents!
Nonissue.
ReplyDeleteLet me explain this more efficiently: we each have finite resources and we each make decisions when allocating them. Yes, if you have children, you will have less time and money to dedicate elsewhere. Is this surprising? Do people honestly imagine they can enter this life-long commitment without sacrifices?
Parenthood comes with no entitlements, and people with children can only expect benefits proportional to what they invest at work. All other things being equal, if one employee works fewer hours than another, he or she should receive less pay. Plain and simple. Nobody made them have children, and the drawbacks should have been understood before conception.
@Anonymous: "If one employee works fewer hours than another"
ReplyDeleteHow do you define work? Is it a measurement of my total production, or the hours I sit in a chair?
@Bridea: “How do you define work?”
ReplyDeleteHow do you interpret “[a]ll other things being equal”?
"How do you define work? Is it a measurement of my total production, or the hours I sit in a chair?"
ReplyDeleteA: Generally the two are directly correlated. A great employee must not only be productive, but also available. Limiting the time you spend at work, or availability to work, in turn limits your opportunities.
People make their own work/life balance decisions every day. Ultimately you determine what you put in, and the input usually directly affects your success.