We're unbalanced

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a passionate advocate for work-life balance. In fact some might say I’m tiresome about it. Well, my defence is that it is really something I believe in because I am concerned about the effect of imbalance on people’s psychology, general health and appreciation of the gift that life is, not to mention how fleeting our time on Earth is.

Yesterday was Go Home On Time Day and I guess it says something that we have to even think about having such a day. In fact, shame on all of us.

Australians continue to work large amounts of unpaid overtime and these ‘donated’ hours added up to 58.8 million hours, which based on the average income adds up to almost $110 billion. If these hours were paid and allocated to Australians looking for work the unemployment rate could be zero.

In 2010 Australians were on average working 2.5 hours more a week than they would have liked. Only one-in-five workers reported they were working the hours they would like to. Unsurprisingly, the desire for fewer hours was stronger amongst people working long hours, whereas part-time workers indicated they would like to work more hours.

The general desire for more work by some and less work by others highlights the need to balance the distribution of work hours across the labor force. Of course this means that women are often the ones who feel stress because they ‘have’ to get home to care for their kids, to avoid high after school care fees etc and men feel stress because they assume the ‘worker’ role and are more inclined to stay at work longer. This is a concern for continuing gender stereotyping as well as being at home with the family becomes an ok choice rather than a responsibility. How did we get to the point where our children became second in importance to our employer? Is that the sign of an evolved species? Seriously?

There is some research to suggest that working as little as two hours extra a week can be indicators for obesity, hypertension and heart disease as well as the obvious anxiety disorders and stress related illnesses such as depression. And of course just the fact of sitting in a chair for long periods has obvious ill effects, muscular skeletally at least.

The other concern is that it doesn’t take long for something such as ‘donated’ working hours becomes part of the culture of the workforce and indeed companies. ‘Working back’ quickly goes from a request or ‘chipping in’ to an expectation. Feelings of guilt start if you leave while the rest of your colleagues are working on (no matter you might have completed your day’s work or have great time management skills). It can be difficult for general staff but also hard for managers who don’t want to be ‘seen’ to be leaving on time while the worker bees are slaving away. Mind you hopefully it means they are fulfilling one of their key roles as a manager, being a role model.

Almost as a consequence of the above it has become ‘normal’ to check our work emails at home or almost addictively peeking at our work material on our phones or tablets on the train home or while eating dinner. I live by the maxim that when I walk out the door my work day is finished and doesn’t start again until I walk in the door the next day. My time is my time not my employer’s, why does this seem ‘odd’ or outrageous to even say that?

Let’s face it few of us work for a charity, so to be brutal why do we ‘donate’ hours to quite wealthy corporations? If we want to be so altruistic how about working those five or ten hours at an organization that could actually use us? Australians work three times more hours of unpaid overtime than they volunteer to community organisations. If we are doing long hours which could be done by two people within contracted hours then damn it employ another person and do something positive for the economy and the community. Sometimes I think we have a need to be martyrs and I ponder on what generates that in 2014.

Research also shows us that the more hours one works, especially if we don’t want to be doing it, the less productive we are, our instincts diminish proportionately and our critical thinking is affected. The key is to use the extra hours for tidying up, completing tasks, reading rather than reviewing, starting a new project or anything forensic.

We often blame the lack of time, indeed it’s almost a mantra these days that ‘I never have enough time to fit it all in’. I frankly and loudly scoff at this notion. It is a simple, scientific fact that you have as much time as there is time, no more no less. We have the same 24 hours we always had. What happens is we choose to cram more into those hours. Look time is in our control, it does not control us. Grab that control back and decide ‘I can only do what I can do and let the cards fall where they may’. Again if it means asking for help or more staff then take some responsibility for your own well-being and ask for it. If you aren’t listened to then why would you work for/with someone like that?

Finally, life is a precious gift and given to we lucky few. It is also very fleeting and tragically for many even more fleeting. MH17 have a few hundred people on it who have taught us that tomorrow is not a guarantee for anyone; so do we really want to spend precious hours of life working extra and unpaid hours? What lunacy is that? ‘If I put in the hard yards today it will all pay off in the years to come. The family will thank me when I have a better job and a bit of money in the bank’…such arrogance. Why wouldn’t you want to be grabbing every minute you can to experience life, look at the world around us, cherish, hold, listen to, talk to, love our children, family and friends?

So there it is.

In the end it’s all up to you to decide on the life you believe you ought to be living, the life you ‘deserve’. No one else writes our ‘rule book’, no one is ‘helpless’ and I hope no one gives up their work life balance willingly or unthinkingly.

Take care of yourselves and each other

“If you slave away every day at a job you hate and come home drained and frustrated, what is that teaching your kids?”  ― Alexander Kjerulf, Happy Hour is 9 to 5