Table of Contents
The History of Work Life Balance
The idea of Work-Life Balance, that one should limit the amount of time spent at work, dates back to the manufacturing laws of the late 1800s when the work hours of women and children were restricted.
By 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established a 44-hour workweek, although professionals such as doctors were assumed to be perennially “on call.”
Women’s Liberation Movement of 1980s brought Work-Life Balance model back to forefront.
Followingly, to accommodate women in the workforce, flexible work schedules and maternity leaves were popularized.
Initially, this concept was only for women, expected to do both hold careers as well as family and home.
Soon, these benefits and ideas were expanded to encompass professional men and women.
The idea that people would want to have a balance between their professional and personal lives, more flexibility in managing their schedule, and presumptively increase satisfaction from work and life became a key concept in the late 20th century.
Today, work-life balance is a multimillion-dollar industry and a deciding factor in choosing jobs as diverse as bankers & physicians.
(Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
Why the Model is too old
The concept of Work-Life Balance is outdated because it simply divides our day to day life into 2 activities of choice: Work and Life.
These 2 activities are those activities which we have an influence or a choice upon.
Here the Work segment consists of the daily job we do for earnings and the Life segment includes our day to day living activities such as eating, sleeping, socialising, leisure and other “me times”.
However, this model does not take into account the parameter of Sleep.
Instead, it includes Sleep in the Life parameter along with other activities of choice, leaving very little room for other life activities such as “me time”.
On the contrary, Sleep is not an activity of Life, but it’s actually a mandate.
Sleep is not a choice, but a mandatory process to keep us living the way we are.
Thus, Sleep should have its own parameter in the current Work-Life model, which makes necessary of a major update in the current model.
Giving Sleep its own parameter in the model will make more room in the parameter of Life which will, in turn, emphasise “me time”.
This “me time”, as we will see further, will influence our life turning choices like self-development & relationships management.
The cost of working "Hard"
Work-life imbalance instigates decreased job satisfaction, productivity, and eventual burnout.
Also, it is a major cause of the sharp inequality of power & income.
Today, most of the employees or daily wage workers in India are bound to work for average minimum 9 hrs a day (also 10-12 hrs are now common) with bare minimum employee facilities.These long & high demanding working hours hampers the sleep time as well as “me time” of these individuals which ultimately leads to poor life quality and self-development.
Usually, now it is observed that the sleep factor is being handled by care by every all of us, thanks to the trend of health awareness, however, the “me time” parameter has surely gone on a toss, especially by workers/businessmen in the very low-income group.
These people are helpless and caught up in a never-ending trap of “Earn-Eat-Earn”.
The only path to escape from this vicious cycle is to take enough “me time” for self-development which will open more ways of earning.
This practice will ultimately help to escape the 9 – 6 workday and live a truly balanced life.
The cost of working hard has impacted every working individual’s “me time”.
One of the major causes of an underdeveloped personality is that we are not socialising enough, partly cause of our own introversion but mainly because we do not have enough time for it.
The power of socialising & networking is demonstrated when we see how so many of the leaders around us became the ones they are because of their social & emotional intelligence.
Also, the major cause of failed relationships is that we do not have enough time for our family, friends and loved ones.
Increasing our “me time” will bring us more space in our world of relationships and socialisation.
What is "Me Time" ?
“Me Time” is all about being present with yourself; mind and body.
“Me Time” is the conscious effort of taking (much needed) time-out to recharge your batteries.
“Me Time” can be spent in a range of ways and can vary from person to person.
It can be achieved through having a bath, reading a book, going for an outing or shopping, performing yoga, getting your hair or nails done, playing a PS video game and the like.
Essentially, as long as you’re alone with your thoughts and undertaking mindfulness during any activity, you’re successfully spending some quality “me time”.
Why is "Me Time" important ?
Because, our mind & body are connected, and for our mind & body to function optimally, they need to be in sync.
When they aren’t, you may notice changes in both.
Such as, stress & tension may manifest themselves in your body as aches like stomach cramping, back or neck aches or even migraines.
And the same principle applies reversed.
If you have a physical injury that restricts you from undertaking usual activities, you may notice a change in mood & motivation.
It is amazing how our mind and body communicate with us, and regularly undertaking “me time” allows you to understand their messages and take actions accordingly to be healthy.
(Reference: https://www.directionpsychology.com)
This “me time” can be utilised for self-development activities such as reading a self-help book, enrolling for an online course, watching YouTube tutorials, learning a new skill, etc. that will eventually succeed us in our career as well as relationships.
All the successful entrepreneurs and leaders in history were able to become what they were just because they took out enough “me time” for their self-development & learnings.
If we get no such “me time” at all, then there will be no self-development, neither intellectual nor interpersonal.
Climbing up the successful corporate ladder or being happy in relationships will only remain in our dreams and imagination.
Diminishing Law of Returns
The working environment in a window of 24 hrs typically follows the diminishing law of returns, i.e. the more time (length) we work, the less work results with increasing dissatisfaction and fatigue.
We usually make more business calls, attentively attend more meetings, complete more to-dos, or learn more skills in the first half of the day.
Given this, there should be an optimal time of working length.
Let us now find that below.
The Work-Life Triangle
Whatever advancement does human technology make in future, the time we have at our disposal is always going to remain the same.
We can do nothing to change the 24 hours we have in a day.
We need to manage our day to day activities in these hours strictly.
If we divide our key activities of a day, we get three sets: Sleep, Work (job or business) and Personal Life (me-time or relations).
And the sound balance of these 3 activities is crucial for a blissful life.
If all individuals are able to achieve this balance, all civilisations and countries on this planet, both at a macro & micro level, will form an equilibrium of work-life resulting in a tremendous development of mankind.
Now if we take 24 hours of a day and divide it into the above 3 sets of activities, we get figure 8.
Now let us get introduced to “The 8-8-8 Rule” which demonstrates the perfect balance of work life.
The "8-8-8" Rule
If we want to achieve a perfect balance of these 3 activities, as they all are equally crucial, we need to restrict them to 8 hrs each.
Hence, Sleep should be of 8 hours, which is already recommended by health experts, Work should be no more than 8 hours and finally, we should get “me time” of 8 hours for self-development, relationships and mindfulness.
However, this is not easy as it seems.
There are some major challenges if we need to follow this approach.
Challenges in the Model
1. Existing Labour Laws in India
Considering that we take 8-9 hours of sleep every night and that we are not facing any issues for the sleep time, the main challenge now is in the working hours of the day.
The average fixed working hours for an employee of any organisation in India is currently 9 hours a day, which is 1 hour more than what we need for the balance.
However, the above 9 hours are exclusive of daily travel what we need to do to reach the office if we are not working from home (as most of the cases are in suburban and rural India).
If we add an average of 1-hour travelling to the prevalent 9 working hours (30 mins one-way travel) it results in 10 working hours.
Hence, we need to cut down these 10 hours to 8 hours as work travelling should come under the working hours.
Therefore, to apply this new approach we need to make the following changes:
|
MODELS (Calculations are estimate) |
TOTAL WORK | TOTAL BREAK | TOTAL WORK TRAVEL | TOTAL WORK IN A DAY | TOTAL WORK IN A WEEK (as per Indian Law) | MANDATORY WEEKLY OFF (as per Indian Law) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Current Model |
8 hrs. |
1 hr |
1 hr |
10 hrs |
8 hrs x 6 days = 48 hrs |
1 day in a week |
|
New Model |
6 hrs |
1 hr |
1 hr |
8 hrs |
6 hrs x 5 days = 30 hrs |
2 days in a week |
However, the above proposed amendment in the existing laws is easy to be proposed and harder to be implemented.
There will be strong oppositions from the current big players in corporate market which are cost-conscious.
2. Change Resistance from the Cost-conscious Employers
Reducing the work shift of workers from 9 hours to 7 hours will bring a strong resistance from cost-conscious employers and companies.
Companies have a tendency to cut out costs as much as possible and bring productivity as more as possible.
The deduction of 2 hours from the current model of working hours will require the employers to hire more manpower for the same workload which will raise their operational costs.
These raised costs will broaden the bandwidth of cash outflows leaving some less cash bank for companies to nest, grow and leisure upon.
This is the primary reason for every company to not ease their workers’ shift timings.
On the contrary, many companies are recently proposing the Indian Government to increase the working hours from 9 hrs to 12 hrs a day.
We can also see the trend of many companies today is to pressurise their employees to work beyond the working hours in the name of targets & deadlines without paying a single penny for overtime.
They are ripping off all their employees from energy and milking out maximum business output, turning employees into burnt-out zombies.
These cost-conscious zombie making machines don’t give a shit about employee well being and are only busy chasing the race of unicorns.
However, such companies should realise that by cutting out the work hours, the costs will only increase in the short run, but it is actually going to benefit in the long run.
Because, 20 energetic, satisfied and loyal employees are equivalent to 80 fatigued, dissatisfied and depraved zombies.
Companies can only turn into Unicorns if they have employees in their office desks designing a great product and not zombies designing a graveyard.
3. Labour Mindset of Employees
The third but major challenge to implement the new model of 7 hrs working is the mindset of workers themselves.
Today, the proportion of young and fresher hard-workers is far more than adult and experienced smart-workers.
These hard-workers are usually ready to work for such a working length (hours) where smart-workers will never be productive.
This is because a large portion of young graduates is often needy for a job as well as for the learning of a profession.
These youth are more energetic than their adult counterparts because of their age factor.
They also don’t have wives or children at their home every day waiting and demanding quality time.
As a result, these youngsters work for their employers for 12 to even 14 hours a day.
The large supply pool of such young hard-workers makes employers reluctant to hire professionals who are choosy about working hours even if they are having great expertise which can shape the employers’ future to the next level.
The large availability of hard-workers is making the life of smart-workers tough to strike the balance of work and life.
And this scenario as a whole is making the job market resistant to the idea of new working hours.
The only way to counter this challenge is to make the hard-workers realise the importance of personal life.
The happiness, mindfulness and self-development that comes from a “me time” are far precious than having a meagre figure credited by working day and night the whole month.
They should take a tour of lives of rich where there is less work and more money or even no work at all.
They should see how rich and successful entrepreneurs earn a fortune in just a few minutes of a day and enjoy their private life in the following hours of the same.
They should realise that working hard is not the way to become successful in life but working smart is.
And to work smart, we need time to keep becoming smarter than before.
To keep becoming smarter, we need to give time for ourselves to develop and learn new skills.
And to fetch time for ourselves, we need to cut some time from the office, because a number of hours in a day will always remain the same till the existence of mankind.
In Short
- The idea of Work-Life Balance, that one should limit the amount of time spent at work, dates back to the manufacturing laws of the late 1800s.
- The concept of Work-Life Balance is outdated because it simply divides our day to day life into only 2 activities of choice: Work and Life.
- However, this model does not take into account the parameter of Sleep and its nature.
- Sleep is not a choice, but a mandatory process to keep us living the way we are.
- Thus, Sleep should have its own parameter in the current Work-Life model, which makes necessary of a major update in the current model.
- Work-life imbalance instigates decreased job satisfaction, productivity, and eventual burnout, also, it is a major cause of the sharp inequality of power & income.
- “Me Time” is the conscious effort of taking (much needed) time-out to recharge your batteries and it can be spent in a range of ways and can vary from person to person.
- “Me time” can be utilised for self-development activities such as reading a self-help book, enrolling for an online course, watching YouTube tutorials, learning a new skill, etc.
- We have 24 hours we have in a day and we need to manage our day to day activities in these hours strictly.
- If we divide our key activities of a day, we get three sets: Sleep, Work (job or business) and Personal Life (me-time or relations).
- If we take 24 hours of a day and divide it into the above 3 sets of activities, we get figure 8 (“The 8-8-8 Rule”)
- Hence, Sleep should be of 8 hours, Work should be no more than 8 hours and finally, we should get “me time” of 8 hours for self-development, relationships and mindfulness.
- The challenges for the new model are: Existing Labour Laws in India, Change Resistance from the Cost-conscious Employers, Labour Mindset of Employees.
