The Work-Life Tower of Babel

I saw yet another article on the strong connection between young workers (call them Gen Y, Millenials, next geners) and work-life balance attitudes (see this article on "Young Canadian Workers")

I've seen so many of these kinds of articles now, and they all say the same basic things:

1. Younger workers have a "different view" than "older" workers
2. Younger workers don't want to "give up their life" for their work
3. The two generations "don't understand" each other

I like these articles, and I agree that they are continuing evidence of the need for companies to embrace work-life, but I wonder if they all don't miss a more important point.

To me, there is a very big difference between a company that has work-life programs and a company that has a work-life culture. One can easily have the former without the latter. And there is a danger, I think, in creating a corporate culture that simply offers programs because those programs can become a way of creating barriers among your employees.

How? Because if a company takes the view that work-life is a personal issue only, then the result can be that you create a series of what I call "work-life islands." Specifically, all the "Gen Y-ers" related only to themselves and their way of thinking, all the "boomers" relate only to themselves and their way of thinking, etc. One can imagine all the young parents using maternity leave programs and feeling like they are completely misunderstood by the older employees who are past all of that and also by the younger employees who don't have children. And the younger employees can easily end up with a feeling of resentment towards programs which all seem to "favor people with kids." I see this kind of thing all the time.

The result is a "work-life tower of babel" where every individual group speaks only its own language, and either can't understand the other groups, or worse, harbors resentment towards them.

But this, to me, misses the great opportunity of work-life: the opportunity to create a common work-life vocabulary. Let me explain how I see that working.

The wonderful thing about work-life is that everybody needs it. Absolutely everybody. I don't care whether you are the CEO or the janitor, whether you are old or young, new or experienced. Everybody has a life. And everybody who wants to work wants to contribute. We all have the same basic needs. Please don't tell me that your job is "too important" for you to have a life. Do you really believe you can be miserable and still be productive?

One can use this universal work-life need to create programs that teach universal work-life principles as a basic skill. For instance, no matter what my work-life situation, I will need time to myself. I will need to know what my passions are and feel like I can pursue them. I will get stuck in "blame language" and I will need ways to escape it. These sort of basic principles can be taught. And they are applicable to all individuals seeking work-life, no matter what their individual specific needs are.

If you take this approach you can then create groups of diverse individuals who can reinforce each other, despite having drastically different goals, because they have all had the same "work-life basic training." It's exactly the same thing we did when diversity was first coming in to the work place. I do it all the time in group courses that I run and it works great. In fact, I've had many individuals tell me they appreciate the diversity, because it "proves" to them that (1) they are not "alone" or "weird" in their work-life needs and (2) that their work-life needs will still be relevant to their career, even as their career changes and (3) that the company can address a wide range of work-life situations, not simply "people who have kids"

For individuals who are seeking work-life, I cannot over emphasize this need to understand the basic principles. And for companies seeking to create a work-life culture, I cannot over emphasize the need to teach these basic principles to all your employees...particularly your management team. Managers will set the tone, and they will be faced with a wide range of different employees in different circumstances. They have to be able to relate to everyone to do their job.

Your alternative is a Work-Life Tower of Babel. And we all know how well that turned out.