In November, 2007, I attended the Work Life Congress Event in New York. I find this topic so relevant since we all have found ourselves in a position where :

1. We have taken work home over a weekend.
2. Not found time to take care of our health or spend time with our family and friends
3. Or found ourselves in a job that we don’t really enjoy.

And so we all have been challenged to meet the demands of our job and personal needs or trying to find work life balance. And here was a platform where companies were addressing these concerns. So, I was pleased to be part of it.

In Sept. 2007, I was in India and I spoke to many diversity heads and to many people in various conferences. I met a few of my friends who were working in outsourcing models. This required them to work from 10 pm in the night to 6 am in the morning. They were stressed to find time with their families since their work required them to work with global teams in different time zones…

In essence they left home when their kids were in bed and got back when kids had left for school. Now, this definitely could not last for long and the onus was on their employers to find creative ways to retain them…

Over that, we have technology, this makes us connected round the clock. Anyone in Silicon Valley working on outsourcing projects, gets on calls by 9 pm PST which is 10:30 am in India…

So, they essentially put their kids to bed and start their third shift ( first shift – day job, second shift – family & kids, third shift – global tasks).

Work/life balance refers to the need for us to constantly evaluate and readjust to the various demands of the job and our personal needs. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making short- term sacrifices when you are trying to achieve a goal, the problems arise when self sacrifice and deferred happiness becomes a way of life.

Here is how the NEW Normal looks like:

1. Global interactions require work on weekends, local holidays and vacation days to respond to client and team expectations.

2. Business requirements dictate variable non-continuous work schedules early morning, late evening meetings.

3. Explosive expansion of work at home, mobile and client location workforce.

4. Global teams collaborating remotely across geographies, and time zones.

5. Global interaction/dependencies at all levels of the business.

6. Availability of low cost technology drives 24/7/365 culture.