Tag Archives: Work–life balance

Thoughts on the “This or That? Work-Life Preferences” Survey

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Work-Life Balance

Work-Life Balance (Photo credit: Tanja FÖHR)

If you haven’t yet participated in the “This or That? Work-Life Preferences” survey, then you may do so by clicking here! This survey is ongoing. Although just a handful of people have given voice to their preferences so far, these early results have taken me by surprise. I anticipated that there would be a diversity of preferences reflecting the diversity of participants themselves though. Some of the participants explained their choices to me through private messaging conversations which confirmed what I anticipated. The following are just some of the factors that impact people’s preferences.

  1. Familiarity - Some people enjoy familiarity and, in this case, what’s familiar would be the practice of regularly traveling to a centralized office and working face-to-face with a group of people. Hence it is even conceivable for some to choose 40 hours of traditional employment over 40 hours of working when and where they want.
  2. Time devoted to work and work-related activities - Some indicated that they weighed hours spent commuting against the extra hours of work. Thus, if the extra hours of work is less than or equal to the hours spent commuting, they chose to work the extra hours where and when they wanted. However once the extra hours of work surpassed the hours spent commuting, they selected the traditional employment option.
  3. Autonomy (i.e., being able to exercise as much control over the work as possible) - Many of us don’t mind working more hours but have a greater desire to decide when and where we perform the work. This explains why some people have chosen the option of working 80 hours per week over traditional employment.
  4. Distaste for the 9-to-5 office lifestyle – This may or may not be related to autonomy needs. Some of us just hate various aspects of office culture so much that we would choose up to 80 hours of work per week if it meant being able to get as far away as possible from the 9-to-5 office culture.

Finally, I did not spell out whether the condition under which people worked extra hours but had control over when and where they work was equated with regular employment or self-employment. However, one survey taker commented on how favoring control over the hours of work is so much more important to her. As someone who is self-employed, she pointed out that no matter how many hours of work she was receiving, she could bill them and contract out some of the work to others.

Thanks to all those who took the survey so far. I’m looking forward to seeing what others will choose and to any feedback you have! Sharing this survey with others is also appreciated.

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This or That? Work-Life Preferences Survey

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From each of the following 4 pairs, select one answer:

This survey is based on:

  • My reading of telework related literature and websites showing that a substantial number of people would not mind working more hours if it meant that they have more control over their working conditions.
  • Observations and personal experience comparing self-employment (where it is typical to be working more than 40 hours per week) with regular employment (working 40 hours per week).

I’m just trying to gauge, to the best of my ability here, where this trade-off preference might end. I welcome comments that expand on the selections you’ve made. I’m looking forward to seeing your answers to the survey!

With regard to my own experiences, I would say that it’s easier for me to achieve work-life balance in a work-from-home, self-employed situation even though I frequently worked more than 8 hours in a day while being able to structure the work day around other non-work related tasks as I see fit. That is, the specificity of a work-shift and work location is more of an issue than the number of hours worked per week.

To round out this discussion, here’s a video of Nigel Marsh’s presentation, “Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle,” at TED Talks in Sydney, Australia. My favorite takeaway message from this:

“… governments and corporations aren’t going to solve this issue for us. Just stop looking outside. It’s up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead. If you don’t design your life, someone else will design it for you and you may just not like their idea of balance.” ~ Nigel Marsh

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Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it

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Conventional wisdom posits that the needs of employees and their employer are at odds with each other, however this assumption is not necessarily true. A mutually symbiotic relationship granting employees freedom and flexibility while increasing engagement and, hence, productivity is achievable! Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it: A Results-Only Guide to Taking Control of Work, Not People will force you to examine how you think about work as well as how we unknowingly support the current, conventional view of work through the establishment and use of flexible work arrangements. Conventional flexible work arrangements, by the way, can’t achieve what a results-only work environment (ROWE) can.

In this book, authors Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson make a solid case for prioritizing and measuring results, creating a culture of transparency, trust, and accountability in the process. This means tossing out the misinformed notion that employees’ productivity is somehow correlated with the hours they put in. How is this misinformed? Just think about all the possible ways to stretch out work assignments or subtly fill in some of that time at the office with non-work related activities. Wonder no more about how workers in an entire nation can come to be known for pulling long hours and yet not be all that productive!

Indeed, Ressler and Thompson recount how naturally competition on the basis of being physically present for long hours emerges when managers don’t make results their one and only measure of productivity. The message: Treat employees like the adults that they are and allow them to own the work as well as the process through which they perform it. It doesn’t matter when, where, or how the work is performed as long as the agreed upon outcome is achieved on time.

Ressler and Thompson walk you through real case studies, providing a clear understanding of how their trainers facilitate the necessary culture change within the organization. For example, they explain why it is critical to:

  • Rethink and reestablish how everyone in the organization perceives and talks about when and where employees work (i.e, disregard whether an employee is putting in long hours or not, is physically present or absent, and early or late).
  • Leave it up to employees to decide when they take time off, which means allowing unlimited vacation and sick days (as formal vacation and sick day policies must be managed and having a ROWE means that only the work is managed, not the employees).
  • Ensure meetings are absolutely necessary as unproductive meetings are one of the biggest time wasters (practical guidelines are provided in the book), and make all meetings optional.

Finally, Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it shows how a ROWE is compatible with all kinds of jobs that’re commonly cited as being incompatible with a ROWE. This is my absolute favorite part of the book. For instance, they describe how a ROWE can be established for non-exempt employees (while staying in compliance of regulations that have been considered obstacles). Ressler and Thompson also describe how their trainers facilitated transition to a ROWE for an organization in the field of education as well as a public sector organization.

In a previous post, I’ve acknowledged individuals who stated their preference for the conventional, Industrial Age system of work and accepted their own self-assessment about their abilities and desire not to work under a new system. However, it is my hope that even some of the most reluctant among us will, at some point, choose to take the plunge and find out that the water is just fine! Ressler and Thompson’s thoughts on the human need for self-determination as well as their optimistic view that so many of us can come to enjoy working under a ROWE inspires this hope. Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix it is a refreshing, practical guide that will show you how all of this is possible.

Towards Recognition of Individual Differences and a Less Standardized Work World

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“But not everyone can work this way!” is the most common, instinctive response I hear when talking about telework (especially in a full-time capacity) or results-only-work-environment (ROWE). Through everyday conversations I learn about instances where a full-time teleworker had a difficult time working this way because the presence of a spouse or child at home was distracting. In such a case, I point out that teleworkers need to establish ground rules before attempting to work from home. Moreover, one can still keep daycare arrangements, enlist the services of a sitter, or work at a co-working facility if one is available. On the other hand, I’ve experienced working with coworkers who’ve constantly distracted me with non-work related issues as well (e.g., peppering me with questions about whether or not I want to have children for the umpteenth time), so working in a centralized office isn’t a definite solution to distractions. My conversation partner also pointed out that I’m just lucky to be able to function more autonomously and not need so much social support at work and that this is the reason why the benefits of telework speak to me so much. She followed up by saying that other people are not this way, but I already know that.

With regard to ROWE, a former salesperson who had worked in this capacity before (i.e., on commission) pointed out how intense the demand to constantly produce results gets and how he’d appreciate being paid for his time (along with the downtime) while on the job as well. Also, I can see why someone would want to be paid for the time spent attempting to accomplish a task even if success couldn’t ultimately be realized. As with telework, the benefits of ROWE stand out to me personally because I have a track record of finding faster, more efficient ways of accomplishing tasks. Hence, I’d feel more rewarded by a ROWE system than the standard method of assuming the necessity of an 8-hour workday.

When all the tasks I’ve been assigned to accomplish are finished, I ask for more to do anyway because I don’t like having to ride out the rest of the day, out of a sense of obligation, with nothing to do. Superiors seem to think they’re doing you a favor when they kindly respond with, “No, there’s nothing else for you to do today sweetie” and, without saying that  I may also call it a day and go home, I start thinking that I know how a prison inmate feels – restless, bored, and waiting for time to be up. At the same time, I’ve always realized that the standard system “cheapens” my labor as the larger number units of work I produce is compensated for at about the same amount as a coworker who produces fewer units of work in the same amount of time. Normally, fast workers would go along with this arrangement anyway in order to climb the hierarchical career ladder within the organization, but it looks like this is becoming less of a goal than it once was.

Yes, I understand that not everyone is like me. However, there are many, many jobs out there that aren’t compatible with telework or ROWE. So, I expect that there will always be room for people who can’t or don’t want to work under those conditions. People who protest “Not everyone can work this way!” should also remember that a large number of people don’t want to commute and work 8-to-5 or 9-to-5 either. Just because the vast majority have been forced to work this way for so long doesn’t mean that this is a great arrangement for everyone.

For some reason, whether through conversations with people I know or Internet surfing, I find that a lot of people are under the impression that work-life innovation advocates are somehow trying to get everyone to work this way or that way but it just isn’t the case. Such a goal would not even be realistic. This isn’t similar to a political movement that would have widespread application and bind everyone to it. Rather, this is about individualism and, in particular, helping others understand how to harness this knowledge about individual differences in order to boost the productivity of a society. This is about freedom and promoting more work situation choices. With enough choices, everyone will be able to find a suitable work situation. So, please don’t misunderstand. This isn’t about finding an alternative way to work and then subjecting everyone to it. I never envisioned that we would all want the same things. As a hardcore individualist, I have no problem if someone else, out of personal preference, works 9-to-5 at a centralized office while I telework under a ROWE even if we’re performing the same tasks. I just ask everyone to consider honoring individual differences by supporting choices.

Office Robot Avatars for Telecommuters

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Which do you think is likely to occur first? Sophisticated, remote-controlled, look-alike robots becoming affordable to the average person or full-time telework (for jobs that can be done remotely) gaining widespread acceptance? I’ve often wondered this. If it’s the former, and since I’m petite in stature, I imagine I would stash my stand-in double in the workstation’s coat closet so it would be ready to warm that office chair bright and early! I’d command it to work, and I’d collect the paychecks from afar. I’ve often shared this fantasy in jest without knowing, until recently, that this idea has manifested into reality in the past several years. It’s called telepresence.

The following are video clips of such a robot developed by Willow Garage, and it seems to run smoothly.

Robots Changing the Face of Telecommuting

However, this recent (August 2012) footage of the QB-82 shows that there is still room for improvement. Notice how awkward navigation can be and the occasional Wi-Fi signal interruptions.

My Life as a Telecommuting Robot

Finally this performance review for IvanAnywhere is rather funny.

Some Internet commenters have rightly pointed out that many of us want to work from home in order to avoid office commotion and noise as some jobs are better performed in a peaceful, quiet environment allowing for better concentration and reflection. Thus, having to experience the office chatter and interruptions through robots goes against the whole purpose of working remotely. However, I don’t think this has to be an “all or nothing” issue. If such robots become sufficiently cost-effective,  even those of us who enjoy working in an isolated, quiet environment have some reason to use them sparingly and when it’s most important to (e.g., at important meetings, to establish a presence at the office from time to time). Finally, this technology is a great solution for those who can’t travel for whatever reason (e.g., disabilities, illness, etc.) and want to work from home but yet be fully integrated into the office scene. What are your thoughts?

Link

There are a number of benefits to teleworking that may already be familiar to you because they are reiterated time and time again. However, I will quickly summarize them for those who are new to this subject matter:

For employees who can telework and work well this way:

  • Can save thousands of dollars annually that would otherwise go towards gas and office clothes
  • Improves work-life balance by freeing up 1-2 hours (or more for those who commute even further) so that employees have the option to get right to work instead of wasting time in rush hour traffic as well as being able to get necessary errands done without a hassle (e.g., picking up kids from daycare/school)
  • Under a Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) where work can be done anywhere, anytime as long as the work is done on time, employees can lead a healthier lifestyle by not having to stay sedentary for 8-10 hour time blocks (includes commute time). See Frederick Pilot’s blog, Health Insurance Crisis, to understand how this correlates with the rising cost of health care as well as to obtain status reports about this crisis.

For employers:

  • Reduces real estate costs (for the physical space itself as well as additional costs of maintenance and utilities)
  • A more decentralized workforce allows business to continue during emergencies such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, etc.
  • Employees who are well-suited to telework are more engaged and productive working from wherever they want, instead of at the office, which adds to the bottom line
  • When recruiting, employers can hire the best people for the job regardless of their geographic location
  • Having this option for employees enjoy more freedom and flexibility at work improves recruitment and retention, reducing the cost of turnover

For environmental conditions:

  • Less congestion for those who must travel to work as well as reduces wear and tear on deteriorating freeway infrastructure from having so many people utlizing it during rush hour
  • Although there’s some debate over whether or not teleworking employees make up for not having to commute to an office by driving elsewhere, a reduced need to build additional office building space and expand freeways does mean a decreased carbon footprint
  • The more we can curtail the growth of our freeways and buildings as our population grows, the more space we leave for wildlife

Upon mentioning the benefits listed above in my conversations with people, I get a range of reactions. Sometimes it’s disbelief – as if I were just talking about the benefits of teleportation.  Sometimes it’s a “Gee that would be great!” followed by moving onto another conversation topic. At other times it is resistance because people are used to the Industrial Age work arrangement and/or love the face-to-face, social aspect of a centralized office. However, as dog owners are not hard to find in the United States, when I begin asking how long people’s dogs have to wait before they can eliminate their waste, reactions change. Yes, there are obedient dogs that wait 9-10 and even 14 hours on a particularly bad day for their owners to come home and let them out.  I’m speculating that the 14 hour figure represents overtime work and/or some event on the freeway (perhaps an accident) that has slowed traffic down to an unusual pace. They are most probably coping by not drinking enough water during the day. Just how many of us can live this kind of lifestyle for 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week? One dog owner told me that this is why she thinks her dog developed bladder stones some years later.

Let’s remember that a great many people (apartment/condominium dwellers and those who don’t have fenced in yards) can’t just leave their dogs outside. Additionally, although people can send their children to daycare or school and have their aging or disabled family members stay in some type of “home,” daycare for dogs isn’t prevalent for some obvious reasons. For example, there would be some amount of chaos as new, unfamiliar dogs arrive and intermingle. So, as many would say, it’s better to surrender your pets to someone else who can take better care of them if you cannot. However, I think that what I’m talking about is going on in great numbers (considering the number of people who work in the traditional, 8-hour day arrangement and the number of dog owners). Also, the possibility of a telework arrangement now presents an obvious solution.

To those whose jobs aren’t conducive to remote work or who benefit from the traditional, centralized work arrangement, be supportive of the option to telework anyway. You never know. This may increase the chances that one of your trustworthy teleworking coworkers or neighbors can help out during a break.

I don’t own a dog, but my parrot, Nikita, does not wait in her cage for 8+ hours to be let out. She’s out playing on her parrot play-station nearby or sitting on my shoulder while I work. She’s pretty quiet and not distracting. As I’ve fulfilled my responsibility to give her as much of a natural life as possible, I can work happily. I totally understand why most people want to have that steady paycheck that comes with regular employment. I just hope that more employers out there will see the wisdom of the Information Age working arrangement and take steps towards increasing flexibility and freedom to benefit us all.

Below are links for pet owners who work from home and need a little help with reducing distractions:

Telework Exchange

Bark Busters Home Dog Training

Mass Career Customization: Aligning The Workplace With Today’s Nontraditional Workforce

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Before delving into Mass Career Customization, I’d like to address a paper titled The Hidden Work In Virtual Work (click to download). It describes the high personal costs some remote workers have borne while trying to achieve work-life balance and maintain professional connections. I imagine that this paper can scare many away from the prospect of telework. However, note the limitations of this study. Like any good researcher, Heimrich Schwartz describes the methodology for collecting data. This study was based on information gathered from twenty-three informants who were recruited from the researchers’ social network. Therefore, like most qualitative studies, this study has a low sample size. Furthermore, participants were not randomly selected. Having drawn from their own personal network, participants are more likely to share similarities than if drawn from a pool that represents all remote workers. It is quite possible that their recruitment method did not capture the experiences of successful remote workers who thrive under this working condition.

There is no discounting the fact that not everyone can or wants to work remotely, and it’s important to point out all the problems – whether potential or real. I have not found any telework advocates who think that everyone should work this way. In fact, they make it clear that this is a choice and is contingent upon an individual’s ability to work and keep a balanced life in this arrangement. I envision that determination as to who becomes a teleworker or not is, in large part, a self-selection process as people, through both good and bad experiences, choose their occupation based on their likes and dislikes which are a function of their own traits and characteristics. Some jobs can be performed remotely while others can’t. Many telework advocates are also clear that management needs to look out for those who are struggling and provide a way to transition back to the office if necessary. Thus, it is important to bring attention to cases so that such disastrous situations can be prevented or resolved. As it turns out, possible solutions are not far behind.

Upon reading Mass Career Customization by Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg of Deloitte LLP, I realized that we may yet find ways to support people who want to work remotely but struggle at it. In fact, the authors describe how this system, which gives employees control over multiple facets of their job, can be used in conjunction with telework. With Mass Career Customization (MCC) employees can adjust the pace, workload, location/schedule, and role according to their needs throughout their career. This book takes you through the process of implementing MCC (from how to make a business case for it and get buy-in from key people in the organization to running it) and provides detailed case studies of a few organizations that have successfully incorporated it. Organizations enjoy benefits such as improved recruitment and retention of talent, increased levels of employee satisfaction and engagement, and a clear, honest account of human capital resources.

Benko and Weisberg point out how much more realistic it is to view people’s investments in their career as a sine wave. During the course of life there are times when personal or family needs predominate. At other times, people are more career driven. In contrast to the traditional family structure where men worked 40 hours a week while women spent all of their time taking care of the home, children, and other non-work related duties, the vast majority now have to juggle work and family resulting in this ebb and flow of investment in career. Thus, most organizations are still geared towards a way of life that has all but vanished. This change in family structure, shortage of skilled knowledge workers, increased number of women in the workforce, nontraditional expectations of Generation X and Y workers, and impact of technology have converged. To thrive, organizations would do best to accommodate by incorporating a more flexible system. The authors thoroughly explain why MCC is superior to current flexible work arrangements (FWA). FWAs fail to serve employees’ needs because they are point, rather than systemic, solutions. For example, an employee goes on maternity leave and then is expected to work the same way she did prior to her leave of absence. Under MCC, this change in her life would still be considered so that she has the option to dial down on various aspects of her job as needed. That said, the authors point out that MCC is about more than work-life balance; it’s about career-life fit.

Back to the issue of cases in which telework destroyed work-life balance for some workers. By pinpointing such problems telework critics have provided a great service because, upon realizing these problems, we can develop appropriate solutions. Although people who know me would describe me as very self-disciplined and great at maintaining strong boundaries, I have experienced how unpleasant it can be for work and life to bleed into each other myself (having contrasted my experiences managing the pace and workload at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral level), so I am quite sympathetic to the people in Shwartz’s study. It dawned on me, however, that even for self-disciplined people, increasing pace or workload makes it more difficult to separate work and life. At some point, even the most self-disciplined would suffer. If there is a valuable employee who wants to work remotely but handles it better at some point lower than 100% pace or workload AND does not require or want to be fully dialed up, then why not consider it?

It is important to discuss, debate, and be wary of any way our creations might turn on us. At this point however, marching us all back into Industrial Age workplace practices does not sound like a viable option. There are already people thriving as remote workers. With some imagination and innovation, we may well come up with systems to support those who want to work remotely but struggle with it. The great plethora of ideas and inventions we have developed to solve our problems throughout the history of mankind never ceases to amaze me.  Thus, I am quite optimistic that we can troubleshoot the problems Shwartz brought up. In closing, here is my favorite quote from Mass Career Customization (page 148): We tend to walk into the future backward, perhaps wanting to go in a new direction but not realizing that we are defining the new direction relative to our past experiences.

The Virtual Manager: Cutting-Edge Solutions to Hiring, Managing, Motivating, and Engaging Mobile Employees

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If you are looking for a guide to managing a virtual workforce that expands upon human resources procedures beginning from hiring the right people, to helping them succeed in a virtual position, to helping someone transition back onsite if the arrangement doesn’t work out, The Virtual Manager by Kevin Sheridan does exactly that. This book opens up with a thorough explanation of the advantages of having a virtual workforce (e.g., the business case – enhancing the ability to recruit and retain talent as well as increasing worker productivity). However, it also addresses the inherent challenges of effective communication.

Like other books on telework I’ve read, Sheridan then explains the traits and characteristics of people who are likely to succeed as virtual employees. I agree with much of what he says here. However, in the section on interviewing, he states that successful candidates would indicate that they “expect to keep normal business hours,” (p. 64) and that an answer such as “I work best at night” (p.65) is a red flag. This is an issue that I would like to have explained further so that this can be reconciled with the section on working hours towards the end of the book (pp. 192-193). In this latter section, Sheridan makes it clear that it would be ideal to allow employees to work when they are the most productive (as long as other conditions of employment such as having to interact directly with customers is not impacted). This is followed by his support for having a Results-Only Work Environment (such that productivity rather than hours worked is important) especially where a remote work system is concerned.

Sheridan emphasizes that managers need to look out for perceptions of unfairness among onsite staff and ensure that fairness with regard to policies and procedures (e.g., how would salaries be adjusted, due to change in cost of living, if a virtual employee relocates). However, by having employees understand that working offsite is a privilege that can be revoked (p. 68) a scenario is set up in which employees may then come to view onsite work as beneath offsite work as other telework authors have cautioned. Yes, there should be a procedure in place to reinstate employees back onsite if the arrangement does not work out, but perhaps “privilege” isn’t the right word.

Despite the inconsistencies noted, The Virtual Manager, is still a great guide for thinking about human resources policies and procedures. Sheridan demonstrates great understanding of employee engagement and distinguishes this from employee satisfaction. “Satisfaction is contentment with the organization, whereas engagement is taking the initiative to make the organization exceptional” (p. 78). Moreover, he understands why engagement is of utmost importance where virtual employees are concerned.