Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Work-Life Balance

Introduction to the theory and practice of work-life balance

Workplaces nowadays are increasingly asking employees to take responsibilities and have contributions to their organizations. This phenomenon causes a lot of conflicts between workers and their jobs. “Work-life balance” has become most noticeable and important issue in the working places. The so called “work-life balance” mainly refers to how workers contribute their time on work at the same time on lifestyle. As to the details, the theory of work-life balance is a theory that concerns about the balance between one’s work and lifestyle. In this theory, career planning and ambition are included in the concept of work and the concept of lifestyle includes the situation of one’s health, pleasure, family, spiritual as well as leisure. From the employees’ point of view, they need to care about the family and their own heath while they meet the obligation of the work. (Lockwood 2003)It is also a challenge for employer to create a company culture to support their employees to focus on their jobs while on the work. (Lockwood 2003). In the mid 1800s, the work-leisure dichotomy was invented. The notion of “Work-life balance” was primarily used to describe the balance between someone’s work and their personal life in the late 1970s in UK. The phrase was first coined in 1986 in the USA (Lockwood 2003). Paul (1963) said that “one of the aspects of happiness is when you can make as little distinction as possible between your work and your play”.

In early capitalist society, workers or so called employees were exploited by capitalists. Seeking for the maximum benefit, the capitalists drove the workers to keep working as long as they could. There was no leisure or pleasure for workers at all. (Lockwood 2003) What’s more, the salary they earned monthly hardly met the basic need of their families. The workers lived under quite a bad situation, let alone kept the balance between work and life. As the development of technology and society, more and more employees began to pay attention to the issue of work-life balance. For most employees, it is an essential matter of enjoying life while working. The year of 2003 was a hard time for most Americans, as many employers canceled the vacation of their employees and improved the requirements for working which had a great influence on the life of both the employees and their families. According to the result of an investigation done in 1968 (Life), there were four employees in every ten might feel the stress from their jobs. This figure may be higher in today’s society with high competitiveness. In a later study, the result showed that the amount of negative emotion coming from the stress both from family to work and from work to family was sharply increased (Joseph et al. 2002). It is indicated that if one cannot get the balance between work and life then both his work and life would