4i Solutions’ Director of People Development, Ivor Reveley, is fed up…

So, the reason I’m fed up with “work-life balance” is nothing to do with “balance”. In fact, it has everything to do with the two concepts being put “in balance” in the first place. It assumes that work and life are in conflict and that’s not how I see it.

The phrase denigrates the place that “work” has in our lives. It implies that “work” conflicts with “life”. It implies that by “managing” work you will magically improve life. No – in my eyes work is a key component of life and so the phrase I prefer is Life Balance.

We should all take a long, hard look at our Life Balance. We should look at our priorities, our relationships, our social life, our physical, mental and spiritual balance and we should not denigrate the role of our work in all of this. Here are four reasons why work is a key component of our Life Balance:

Camaraderie: We are all social animals to one degree or another. We love to engage, to share stories and develop friendships. Work gives us endless opportunities for this key aspect of our lives and, occasionally, very occasionally, it is colleagues at work that meet us in our darkest hours. We can go to them for advice, for solace and to share our deepest problems. This is ultimate camaraderie.

Development: Over our lifetime we develop many skills and abilities and so many of them are developed at work. We should never overlook the life enhancing opportunities that work gives us. The “on the job” coaching, the training programmes that we’ve been on and the reflections we make on the endless work situations we’ve been in, they build us as people and provide us with a multitude of development.

Money: We cannot deny that money gives us the freedom to feed ourselves, to gradually build a comfortable home and to get out and explore the world around us. Work is essential in this, both in our early years and later in life. We should learn to be thankful for our work, even when it becomes tough, because it is our life-blood, our source of income and, in the 21st century, we cannot easily survive without money.

Character: There is no better builder of character than our work. We have an almost endless supply of difficult, energy sapping, fast changing situations to deal with and these can, when handled carefully, provide the raw material for building our character. Yes, we need to be able to reflect in a positive way and this sometimes requires coaching or support, but it can be done and the result can so often be a strong and healthy character.

So, I say “no” to “work-life balance”, because I never want to underplay the vital role that my work plays in my life as a whole, and a big “yes” to the almost identical, but massively different, concept of “Life Balance”.