Lesson 9: Balancing Outside Issues with Work Demands

Attention

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this lesson's material, students will be able to:

  • Identify how work life balance may affect school work, relationships, and job performance.
  • Identify and understand the importance of pre-emptive skills regarding planning, organization, time management and self-care.
  • Define work-life balance, multiple-roles, and other key terms and understand the deleterious effects of stress.
  • Identify specific strategies that you can use to achieve balance.

Teaching

American families are being pulled in many directions. The pressure on men and women to maintain their income has forced both husbands and wives into the workforce. While dual earner families have increased, there has been no change in the demands of maintaining a family and dealing with dependents. With more people working, and working more hours, balancing work and family life has become a key issue for American workers.

The response of policy makers to this concern has focused on providing child care assistance or policies that increase the time off from work for childbirth and parenting. Some employers have expanded the scope of their work/family programs to include assistance with elder care and flexible work arrangements. More recently, employers, who are sensitive to work and family issues, have begun to see that the way work/family policies are implemented by supervisors and the overall workplace climate can have a significant impact on the ability of workers to balance their work and family lives.

Click HERE to view this directly on TED  

There are often two main aspects associated with work/life balance – the first is lack of time and scheduling conflicts, and the other is feeling overwhelmed, overloaded or stressed by the pressures of multiple roles.

Research for Health Canada indicate that there are four broad categories associated with work life balance:

  • Role overload: This form of work-life conflict occurs when the total demands on time and energy associated with the prescribed activities of multiple roles are too great to perform the roles adequately or comfortably.
  • Work-to-family interference: This type of role conflict occurs when work demands and responsibilities make it more difficult to fulfill family-role responsibilities (e.g. long hours in paid work prevent attendance at a child's sporting event, preoccupation with the work role prevents an active enjoyment of family life, work stresses spill over into the home environment and increase conflict with the family).
  • Family-to-work interference: This type of role conflict occurs when family demands and responsibilities make it more difficult to fulfill work-role responsibilities (e.g. a child's illness prevents attendance at work, conflict at home makes concentration at work difficult).
  • Caregiver strain: Caregiver strain is a multi-dimensional construct defined in terms of "burdens" in the caregivers' day-to-day lives, which can be attributed to the need to provide care or assistance to someone else who needs it.

From: Health Canada, (2008), Reducing Work-Life Conflict: What Works? What Doesn't?
 
What are the signs of an unhealthy work–life balance?

A Mental Health Foundation survey found:

  • one third of respondents feel unhappy or very unhappy about the time they devote to work
  • more than 40% of employees are neglecting other aspects of their life because of work, which may increase their vulnerability to mental health problems 
  • when working long hours more than a quarter of employees feel depressed (27%), one third feel anxious (34%), and more than half feel irritable (58%). 
  • the more hours you spend at work, the more hours outside of work you are likely to spend thinking or worrying about it. 
  • as a person's weekly hours increase, so do their feelings of unhappiness. 
  • many more women report unhappiness than men (42% of women compared with 29% of men), which is probably a consequence of competing life roles and more pressure to 'juggle'. 
  • nearly two thirds of employees have experienced a negative effect on their personal life, including lack of personal development, physical and mental health problems, and poor relationships and poor home life.

Helping Yourself

The following actions may help.

  • Take personal responsibility for your work-life balance. This includes speaking up when work expectations and demands are too much. Employers need to be aware of where the pressures lie in order to address them.
  • Try to 'work smart, not long'. This involves prioritization - allowing yourself a certain amount of time per task - and trying not to get caught up in less productive activities, such as unstructured meetings that tend to take up lots of time. 
  • Take proper breaks at work, for example by taking at least half an hour for lunch and getting out of the workplace if you can.
  • Try to ensure that a line is drawn between work and leisure. If you do need to bring work home try to ensure that you only work in a certain area of your home - and can close the door on it. 
  • Take seriously the link between work-related stress and mental ill health. Try to reduce stress, for example through exercise, relaxation or hobbies.
  • Recognize the importance of protective factors, including exercise, leisure activities and friendships. Try to ensure that these are not sacrificed to working longer hours, or try to ensure that you spend your spare time on these things.
  • Watch out for the cumulative effect of working long hours by keeping track of your working hours over a period of weeks or months rather than days. Take account of hours spent worrying or thinking about work when assessing your work–life balance. These are a legitimate part of work and a good indicator of work-related stress.

Assessment

Lesson 9 Quiz

In this quiz I would like you to select TWO of the items in the "Helping Yourself section in the Lesson Plan that you need to work on (meaning you are not quite good at that aspect of taking care of yourself yet.) For each one describe your current status and how you might go about making a change.

  1. Helping Yourself Item 1
  2. Helping Yourself Item 2

Possible Class Discussion A

Click HERE and watch at least TWO of the TED Talks

Comment on what you learned and what you think about it. Please don't forget to make these substantial and thoughtful. And, don't forget to respond to others.

Possible Class Discussion B

You have an iPad and you can play games on it! Part of striking a balance between work and play is to find time to play. Research the games in the App Store and find some to try out. Focus on games that will allow you to take a little "time out" from work when you are feeling stressed. Also you could find apps that are relaxation based such as meditation or contemplative apps.

Post some discussion about the apps/games that you found.