WORK AND LIFE: CREATING A BALANCE

Maintaining the Balance between Work and Life

Organizational wellbeing is the totality of the organization’s health and the wellness of its workforce in relation to their individual well-being, performances, and psychosocial environment. Without a safe and healthy workforce, we cannot have a progressive and prospering organization. Therefore, maintaining equilibrium between work and life is a necessary condition for a productive workforce and a progressive organization.

Work and life are inherently interwoven, the human ability to engage in work that generates values enables man to live a life that is satisfactory and good. With the same token, organizational productivity is hinged on the ability of man to continuously engage in productive work. This meaning to the notion, that a healthy workforce is a healthy organization.

According to the Organizational Health Diagnostic and Development Corporation, Organizational health is defined as “ an organizational ability to function effectively, to cope adequately, to change appropriately, and to grow from within” The definition above laid credence to that fact that a healthy organization behaves the same way a living being does.

However, because of the risk factors that are associated with work and life, the organization must through deliberate policies help its workforce to maintain a balance between work and life otherwise life itself will become “short and brutish”, the workers’ health jeopardized and organizational wellbeing put in peril.

Interestingly too, it has been proven that in Nigeria and in most developing countries an average worker spent about two third of their active wake time at work, coupled with the rudimentary transportation system and other stress induces challenges workers’ health are most impacted and organizational wellbeing thrown off the balance.

THE INCURSION OF WORK LIFE INTO PERSONAL LIFE

Increasingly, the line between work life and personal life is becoming thinner and difficult to separate, assignments and uncompleted task are sometimes taken home and the organizations at the same time makes effort to accommodate some elements of the family at work – flextime, child-friendly work environment, provision for maternity/paternity leave and family paid vacation. Flexible work pattern allows the worker to work from home, relates task via the company’s dedicated internet platforms and processes.

As good as modern work innovations might sound there is the need to draw a line between work life and personal life, however, since we may find it difficult to entirely separate the two, one is required to be sensitive enough to know when such intrusion is becoming an unnecessary invasion.

DRAWING THE LINE BETWEEN WORK LIFE AND PERSONAL LIFE.

Work life is the amount of time that a worker spends in an employer’s undertaking or at work while personal life is the amount of time that a person spends outside a paid employment and the time which he or she dedicates to attending to personal issues such as family, spirituality, friends, community services, loved ones, and other personal interests. The distinction is that work life is paid for by your employer (s) when calculated in terms of productivity. On the other hand, personal life is self-evaluated and appraised by its owner but not paid for by a third party.

Click on the link below to read:

THE DANGER OF NOT SEPARATING WORK LIFE FROM PERSONAL LIFE

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One response to “WORK AND LIFE: CREATING A BALANCE”

  1. […] Work and life are complementary in nature, work creates values and values are paid for, the reward for one’s labour create financial stability, sense of independence and enables you to live a good life. Having said this, the relationship between work and life should not be at the expense of personal wellbeing, hence, the line between work life and personal life. Besides this, however, is life after-work which is a condition of retirement, redundancy, compulsory or voluntary exit from work? It should be noted here, that, life after-work is dependent on how well work life and personal life are spent. […]

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