Careers expert Julia Richardson explains the importance and impact of work-life balance on productivity, career development and wellbeing.
How do you want your work-life balance to look like in the future?
Professor Julia Richardson explains the importance of work-life balance, how it can impact your productivity, career development and wellbeing, and the strategies you can explore to achieve this sometime elusive concept.
This talk was part of a lunchtime lecture series hosted by Curtin University in 2019.
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You can read the full transcript for the episode here.
Jess (intro): This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future and how their work is helping shape it for the better.
Audience: [Clapping.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Thank you. I might have to put the microphone down a little bit. I'm so delighted to be here, I must say, and actually I'm even more delighted to see you here, because you're not sitting behind your desks working during your lunch hour. So that's great. You're making a start towards achieving some work-life balance. I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land we're meeting on and I wish to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.
So, work-life balance: dream or reality. Now, obviously it's a topic that is very close to people's hearts because it impacts on just about every dimension of our lives. So, when I started preparing for this talk, I thought to myself, 'Okay, let me see if I can perhaps find some useful resources that I can suggest to people'. And so I went to Amazon and I did a search. How many books do you suppose it gave me when I put in the search 'work-life balance'? Take a guess.
Audience: 300!
Professor Julia Richardson: 300? Up.
Audience: 1,000!
Professor Julia Richardson: 1,000? Up.
Audience: 100,000!
Professor Julia Richardson: 100,000? Lower. [Laughs.] 9,000. 9,000 books on work-life balance. So, it's pretty popular. However, when I did a search for two other topics, it was way higher. There was one topic and it was, I wrote the number down here, 40,000 books on this particular topic. What's the topic? 'Diet'.
Audience: [Laughs.]
Professor Julia Richardson: But then there's another, there's another topic that I put in and it came to 50,000 books and this is just books. What is the topic? 'Rich'. So, actually work-life balance might not be as popular as we think, but nonetheless, I think it's still significant. But, what was really interesting to me when I did this search that the key message, particularly in one book about achieving work-life balance, is you have to start really early. So, maybe we're a bit late in the day.
Okay. So, I called this presentation 'work-life balance: dream versus reality'. It's perhaps over-simplistic. Certainly, when we think about a dream as a cherished aspiration, ambition or ideal. To what extent really is work-life balance something that we're always aspiring to but we never actually achieve, versus reality – a thing that exists in fact, having previously only existed in one's mind? I guess my ambition today is to make work-life balance a reality. I'm sure some people in the audience are sitting there thinking, 'What on earth is she doing standing up there talking about work-life balance?' It's true, and I reflect on my own work-life balance: it ebbs and flows. And I think that's the really important thing to remember with regard to work-life balance. It may not be something that you experience all the time, but what I would like to do is perhaps do a little poll in the audience. How many of you perhaps feel that you do have work-life balance? Let's say at least half of the time. If you look over the year, at least half of the time.
Audience: [Unknown response.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Okay. Okay. That's encouraging. What about those who feel that they have it perhaps over a month, at least half of the time?
Audience: [Unknown response.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Okay. That's great. Anybody who doesn't have it at all wondering what on earth it is?
Audience: [Unknown response.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Okay. We need to really work on you then. So the point is it can come, it can go, it ebbs and flows. One of the challenges in achieving work-life balance and our understanding of it is actually the definition of it. Because the problem is that I think we tend to see it that it should be 'half and half', when in fact work-life balance is much more composite. And I actually don't even like the term 'work-life balance', because the problem with this is it separates work from life. And in fact for many of us, if not most of us, work is an integral part of our life. It impacts on our identity, how we see ourselves and also how we're seen by others.
The other thing as well, I think we have to understand, is that when we think about life and certainly in the literature, there tends to be a focus on life pertaining to family. The problems with that is it neglects the fact that for some people, perhaps, for example, people who are single, may not have children. It may also be, if you're an older person, that your children have left home. So, we have to take a much more composite view of what this thing called 'life' is. Also, we have to think about when we're trying to balance our work with our non-work activities. It's not just family and caring activities; it's also things like sport, like education, like hobbies and leisure. Even parents, shock horror, may want to do other things besides care for their children, right? So we're not just talking about people without children when we start to think about their work-life balance; we should also start to think about parents and how they can achieve this more composite understanding of what I like to call 'life balance'. And it certainly doesn't have to be 50/50. For some people, for example, if they have life balance, they may actually be spending 60 or 70 per cent of their time at work. But they're enjoying what they do. They get a strong sense of satisfaction for it.
Now for some people, for example, it may well be that their family is the most important activity they want to engage in when they're not working. Then the next might be career, the next health, next friends. So again, it's about establishing that composite nature of what you want your life balance to be.
Now, one of the most annoying things I think when we start trying to, when we're complaining about the fact that we don't have any work-life balance and we don't have any life balance, some people very annoyingly say to you, 'Well, you're just going to have to make time'.
Big secret. You cannot make time. You cannot make it. There are 24 hours in a day. There are 60 minutes in an hour. There are 60 seconds in a minute. That's it; you cannot make time. Okay? If you were going to have a go at it, what do you need? You need some sand and a glass. Instead of talking about 'making time', I think it's much more valuable to think about actually 'finding time'. Finding some time and some space in our daily activities, in our weekly or monthly activities, to enjoy life in a much more complex way and do the things that we want to do. Now, the key thing is when we start to think about 'finding time', it invites us to try and make better use of the time that we do have.
And I would, if I may, like to introduce a quote by Carl Sandburg, a US poet: 'Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.' The key thing there then is making a decision that you are going to decide how you spend your time and who you spend your time with. And that certainly puts the focus on us to take control.
How do we take responsibility for our work-life balance? It's all about asking ourselves sometimes some really hard questions. The first one is: do you have life balance? If you're struggling with some elements of your life balance, then it's really important to ask yourself a serious question. 'What are the underlying causes of your lack of life balance or the struggles that you have with life balance? What is it that is driving you?' And it must be something to challenge your life balance. I am the first in my family to go to university. Now, I think that's a really important point. Certainly, it is something that impacts directly on how I choose to spend my time and how sometimes I have struggles with my life balance.
Because I'm a first in my family to go to university, I do suffer very badly from 'Impostor Syndrome'. Imposter Syndrome is defined as very much a psychological burden, and it's something where somebody experiences a sense of phoniness and it's usually related to their professional work-life. Regardless of the external achievements, the successes that they achieve, they tend to feel that they don't actually quite belong there. And it's actually only a matter of time that they are discovered that they don't really belong there. For example, if they are a minority in a professional environment, so it could be women who are working in a male dominated industry, such as mining, or it could be men who are working in a female dominated industry. If you look physically different or if you have a very different social background from your colleagues. And one of the challenges when you have Imposter Syndrome is you feel that you have to do 120 per cent. You feel you have to work much harder than anybody else. It's really all about proving yourself.
Okay? You have to question: 'Why am I spending so much time at work? Do I feel, Number One, that I have to prove myself, that I have to work much harder than everyone else? Do I feel, for example, that I am out of depth in my job? I might putting a lot of long hours in because I'm not getting the support that I need. I don't have appropriately qualified colleagues or staff to help me.' They're the kind of questions that you need to ask yourself if you are struggling with with life balance. What is it? Why are you using so much of your time, your energy, your resources? What is it that's driving you? Is it that need to prove yourself much more than anybody else?
Another thing I think we have to ask when we are struggling at times with life balance is what are you getting out of it? Kind of a strange question, isn't it? What are you getting out of not having work-life balance? But actually work-life balance does bring some rewards. Recognition. 'He's got a really strong work ethic. Gosh, he put some hours in'. So, you get that recognition, reward over time. Perhaps status within your office. That could be the positive feedback for somebody who is working too hard. Avoidance. A study was done recently and in fact, just yesterday a friend came into my office and I said, 'How was your weekend?' And he said, 'I was really productive'. I said, 'Oh really, why? Because it was too hot on a Saturday?' He said, 'No, me and the wife had a huge row. So I came into work and I got all my marking done.' Alright. Interesting. Interesting. But that's the point. And actually research has shown very clearly that often times, without making light of it, that often times when there are domestic problems at home, people tend to actually work harder and they spend much longer hours at work. And I think that certainly gives us some pause for thought in our own lives. You know, if there are problems at home then is that the reason why you're spending so, so much time at work?
Another thing as well if for example, if we look at immigrants. Certainly, when I moved to Perth three years ago, I found myself spending a lot of time at work cause it filled in some empty hours. And then the problem of course with that is then you're not developing any opportunities to make friends and then because you don't have a strong friendship network, you end up spending more time at work so you can see that vicious cycle. That is certainly something to bear in mind also.
Of course, if we're spending a lot of time at work, a reward for us can be that sense of being in control. 'I'm ahead of my marking'. 'I'm ahead of my administration'. 'I am ahead of my work emails'. So, you get that feeling of being in control. And also it can be reassuring because 'I'm so important; I have to work these long hours' and it keeps you busy and that busy-ness actually can give you some form of reward. But when we think about work-life balance or life balance, we should also think about the other side, not just the work. Just to give you an example, so I've been Head of the School of Management for just over a year now and a very long standing friend of mine informed me a couple of months ago, he said to me, 'Julia, since you got that gig you've become a rubbish friend'. I said, 'Really? Okay'. And I was just mortified cause I've known this person since I was six years old. He said, 'You've canceled a few of our Skype and WhatsApp chats. You've never done that before. And you've even forgotten two of them'. And I went to bed and I was absolutely mortified thinking, 'Oh my Lord, that's terrible. I'm such a rubbish friend now'. But then I started to think about it and I thought, 'Well, actually, I'm kind of sick of those 11.30pm calls whining about his latest loss of love life, Mr Bachelor, right? And the listening ear. 'Oh yeah. Not again. Well, I don't know'. You know? So, sometimes when we think about our life balance, we should also perhaps take a critical view of how much we are giving to other people in our lives, not just our work, not just our work colleagues. Because, of course, if you're a very valuable friend, you're always on call for a coffee. You're always available for a late night conversation. It's about taking control, not just of your work activities, but also with regard to your social activities to get that overall life balance.
Strategies for achieving life balance. Somebody called me up and said, 'I need five key tips for achieving life balance. What do you suggest?' I gave that horrible answer: 'it depends.' There are just a couple of things I'd like to throw out to you. In terms of your strategy for achieving life balance, one strategy is what we would call segmentation. If you're a segmenter, you're really good and you're very comfortable with dividing things off different aspects of your life. This is a person, for example, who leaves work on a Friday and they do not look at their emails at all over the weekend, or they leave work at five o'clock, they go home, they do not look at their work phone during the evening. 'If you're not going to respond to it, don't look at it' -- that would be my advice. We find that those kinds of people, the segmenters, they're very good at separating. Now, if you are a segmenter and you prefer that way of working, what's really important is to make sure that you have those work structures in place. If you are a segmenter, then you have to put your out-of-office response on your email. Otherwise people will keep emailing you and you have to make it very clear to your work colleagues that you are a segmenter. And similarly, of course, with other matters, with domestic matters, with friendship networks, with families. When I'm at work, I'm at work. In some research, I did on flexible work practices, there's one guy and he worked from home and so what he worked in the basement -- this was in Canada where they have basements cause it's so cold outside. He would get up in the morning, have a shower, get changed. He would walk out of this house, walk around the block, go back into his house, down into the basement, even with a packed lunch, because he needed to separate things out. And when he finished, he'd get up, go out, walk around the block. 'Hi darling, I'm home'. Because that can be the problem when people are working from home. If you've got a segmenter, then they struggle with working from home because it all feels like it's all mashed together. So that's your segment. And again, it's about training your work colleagues, if we're talking about, you know, establishing more boundaries between work and non-work-life, that you are a segmenter and they have to be comfortable with that. And of course, as a manager, you need to be really sensitive to the fact there are some people who are segmenters, and actually not to punish those people who are segmenters and not to overly reward those who are what we would call 'integrators'.
I remember once being at a promotion discussion in a former institution, and there was this terrible discussion that went on and it was about a particular staff member and somebody said they got a lot of letters from students praising this professor. And one of the letters said, 'Oh, it's really great. He even answers emails at two o'clock in the morning' and somebody on the panel said, 'Wow, that's amazing dedication, isn't it?' And I was appalled because I thought, 'Hang on a minute, I know that this guy's got three children under 10. What's he doing?' But the point is, for this particular person, he was an integrator, but we cannot automatically reward people for being integrators. He even responds on a weekend. An integrator may be somebody who was quite comfortable with, you know, attending to emails whilst they're on vacation, perhaps at the end of the day they'll just take a look. It doesn't phase them at all. Maybe last thing at night, they take a quick look at their emails. The problem becomes, I think, is not necessarily with whether you're an integrator or a segmenter, but it's when you are forced to be something that you're uncomfortable with. That's the challenge. For example, I am a segmenter and I prefer to go home and not have to look at my emails all weekend because they get into my head and it bothers me. I have to be very strict on saying, 'I'm going to be a segmenter and I'll only be an integrator if I absolutely am forced to'. It's very, very important. So the first thing is decide what you are and try and play to your strength: integration or segmentation. But that's not to say you have to be one or the other. For some people they're okay to do a bit of one, a bit of the other, depending, for example, on their workload. But my first advice to you I think would certainly be to decide which one you are, and, again, play to your strengths.
But the thing about work-life balance or life balance, it's actually everybody's business. Absolutely. It should be a manager's business. It should be a leader's business and it's certainly very much your business. And why do I say that? Because we know that there is a very strong positive relationship between work, life balance and job satisfaction. Also organisational commitment; that's to say the extent to which I am committed to my organisation. Turnover goes down when work-life balance goes up. We also know that there's reduced absenteeism. We also know that job performance goes up. And interestingly, counterproductive behavior, that's things like harassment at work, bullying, at work, stealing from work, they take a downturn when people have greater experienced life balance. Also, of course, a very positive effect on emotional wellbeing. The other thing as well is that people who report greater overall life balance tend to find the transition to retirement much easier because the point is they have lives and they have identities outside work, so they're not putting all their eggs in one basket. Otherwise, it can be something of a void perhaps if you're investing too much in your work-life versus finding those extra activities outside of work where perhaps you can escape from the pressures of work.
And that's it. Thank you very much for listening.
Audience: [Clapping.]
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Thank you so much. I'll leave it up to anybody to ask questions or give comments or whatever to Julia. Who wants to start?
Audience: [Unknown question.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Oh wow. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry my boss isn't here. Thank you so much.
Audience: [Unknown question.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Great question. What's your name?
Audience: Alexandra.
Professor Julia Richardson: Alexandra. Thank you very much. You know what, Alexandra, when I think about my experiences doing my PhD, I think about a Charles Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities. We know the first line: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' It was very difficult. I think what I tried to do to be honest, Alexandra is because I'm a segmenter it helped me. One of the things I did was that I didn't go home until I'd finished my work in the office. That was very helpful for me cause I found that if I took it home, then I would just work till one and two in the morning. I tried to do it where I was segmenting it, but also I found that my health was suffering and my emotional wellbeing was suffering. So what I tended to do is I tended to set realistic, but clear, deadlines for myself. I also would be very clear to other people that they cannot disturb me when I'm at work. So for example, family members and so forth. And I worked very closely with my supervisors to establish when my key times for productivity were. For example, for me I'm a bit of an exercise nut, mostly because I find that it just helps me to get my head straight. So, I'll do my exercise first thing in the morning and then I go into my office and I know that those first three hours, they're the times when I can absolutely burn through stuff. Whereas my mid-afternoon break is when I start sharpening pencils, and start cleaning my office, desk out.
I actually started to give myself permission to go on, walk around the block for half an hour or 40 minutes and be very deliberate about that and force myself to get some fresh air and get out. Cause during the first few months I would just sit in my office and think, 'I've got to be here. Otherwise it means that I'm not working'. So, setting myself very clear timelines, but it's tough. It's tough. It is the worst of times. But you know what, Alexandra? Honestly, it is the best thing I ever did. My PhD, it was the hardest, hardest thing, but absolutely changed my life. So keep at it. And if you want to come for a coffee, let's go and we'll talk.
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Can I just make it absolutely clear, being in charge of all their PhD students, you know there's no pencil sharpening.
Audience: [Laughter.]
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Question, comment? Yes, please?
Audience: I'm retired. And I'm struggling far more now to get organised, to get things done, to have some sense of organisation. I do waste time. [Additional inaudible speaking.]
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Julia, for the recording, can you please repeat the question?
Professor Julia Richardson: Okay, so you're retired. Sorry, what's your name?
Audience: Judith.
Professor Julia Richardson: Judith. Thank you, Judith. So, Judith, you've actually retired and when you were at work, you actually had probably some structure and some order. How long have you been retired, Judith?
Audience: About five years.
Professor Julia Richardson: Okay. So maybe it's your perceived lack of structure and order that's creating the problem. Maybe you need to introduce some structure to give yourself that sense of, you know, that 'I'm actually doing things that I need to do', but I'd just like to pick up on it on a point that you made that you're 'wasting time'. What's wrong with that?
Audience: [Laughter.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Right, but what's wrong with that? And what is wasting time?
Audience: Relaxing.
Professor Julia Richardson: That's great, isn't it? You know when you, when you said that, it's like when you go in, you've got half an hour to wait for something and you think, 'Okay, what should I do?' I get the phone out, start checking my emails. Just have a little test where you say, 'I'm just going to sit. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to sit and I'm going to watch. I'm going to sit and have a cup of coffee. I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not going to pick a home and garden magazine and browse through that. I'm just going to sit'. How many times do we allow ourselves to do that? Actually not very often. I would be a little bit more kind to myself if I were you, Judith. You may well find it helpful to introduce some structure, but I would also wouldn't be too hard on myself about wasting time.
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Another question? Yes, please.
Audience: [Unknown question.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Yeah, thanks Barb. So Barbara is a colleague of mine in the School of Management. Barb':s question really is about: how do we encourage managers to be much more mindful of the fact that we have some integrators and we have some segmenters in our workforce? To be honest, Barb, what I think the bottom line is: is somebody performing? That's the key thing. I don't care whether you're a segmenter or an integrator, are you doing the job that you need to do? And perhaps also being very careful that as a manager yourself, for example, I try my very, very hardest, if I do have to work, if I've got a particular deadline, not to send emails to my staff over weekend. And if I have to, I will start it with, 'I am so sorry for sending this on a weekend. I have no expectation for you to respond.' Similarly, after five or six in the evening, I would not send an email out. Unless it's absolutely necessary, because I have to cater to the segmenters. I mean it may well be that you've got somebody who is a segmenter, but because they're getting an email from the boss, then that's a signal. 'Oh, I'd better tell her, I better respond. Otherwise she thinks that I'm not working'. I hope you're not working. It's nine o'clock on a Friday evening. So I think it's really important to educate managers, and I think that relates to another point as well, Barb, is about when we look at, for example, flexible work practices, and we know that in some organisations they'll introduce these flexible work practices, but nobody dare take them up. Because when you take up a flexible work practice, you're seen as not being 'serious' about your career. You're not ambitious because you've got a flexible work practice. And I think that we have to take a much broader, much more composite and understanding perspective of what people want. And it's about whether or not somebody is productive. But on the other hand, if I notice that somebody was working way too much, for example, in my case and in my school's case, somebody whose got way too many PhD students, then I think it's my duty bound as a manager to stop that kind of practice so that people don't feel that they need to work overly hard. They need to achieve their targets.
Professor Julia Richardson: Sorry. Obviously that's a bit of a bee in my bonnet, isn't it?
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: We've got a question here.
Audience: I was wondering how important it is to set boundaries... [Unknown addition to question.]
Professor Julia Richardson: Yes, absolutely. I'm sorry, what's your name?
Audience: Camille.
Professor Julia Richardson: Camille. Thank you, Camille. So Camille's question is about: 'how do we set boundaries?', and specifically, for integrators so that they're sending emails out throughout the weekend. I think it's really a problem actually, Camille, if you are a manager or a leader and you are an integrator, right? Because then you're sending a specific message. If I've got an integrating manager or leader, they're sending the message that, 'Hey, I'm an integrator, so I expect you to be'. Certainly in a leadership position, I think it's much better if you actually demonstrate being a segmenter even if you're not. You can always with regard to your emails, put it on a timer and then it goes out on a Monday morning. That's one way to get around it. And I think also with regard to people who are integrators, general staff who are more integrators, I think you have to be very clear with them that there are some people who are segmenters and they have to be very respectful to them.
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: Thank you. Back there.
Audience: Hello. Can you hear me?
Professor Julia Richardson: Hello. Hello, Sasha.
Audience: Philosophers have stressed that recreation, play is vital to human beings. The life balance. [Inaudible.] Do workaholics enjoy a short life?
Professor Julia Richardson: Well, we know, for example, certainly we know that stress has a negative impact on longevity. Induced stress certainly from the workplace has a detrimental impact on our physical and emotional wellbeing. And actually if any of you are flying at all on Singapore Airlines, there's an excellent documentary by a CNN medical scientist, Sanjay Gupta, specifically about stress in the US and the impact of that on longevity. And so for example, with decreased job security, that increases stress and obviously when we get organisational restructurings and people get worried about lack of employment security, their resolution for that is often working harder and 'If I just work longer than I will keep my job' and we know that certainly has a negative impact on stress. And that again, can impact on your emotional wellbeing. Also, we see that with regard to increases in suicide rates, certainly in the US. So, there's every reason, every reason for government and employers and leaders and individual employees, but a big focus on having that life balance, for their own wellbeing, but also for the company's wellbeing in terms of organisational performance.
Professor Torbjörn Falkmer: We are coming to a point where we need to close this session. Thank you so much. Please help me thank Julia.
Professor Julia Richardson: Oh, thank you.
Audience: [Clapping.]
David (outro): You've been listening to The Future Of, a podcast powered by Curtin University. If you have any questions about today's topic, get in touch by following the links in our show notes.