Life Unbalanced
“Just because you’re not sick doesn’t mean you’re healthy.”
Author Unknown
Results of a new study from the University of Maryland confirm what working parents already know — the expanded work week is undermining family life. In a study of over 500 employees in a Fortune 500 company, researchers concluded that long hours at work increase work-family conflict and that this conflict is associated with increases stress and depression (regardless of how flexible an employee’s schedule was or how much help they had at home for child care).
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, some major career paradigm shifts continue to influence the value struggle between employers’ needs and employees’ wants. Job security has been replaced by employability security, organizational loyalty has been replaced by job/task loyalty, and linear career paths have been replaced by alternative career paths. It is no coincidence that when reviewing characteristics of the “Best Companies” in America, we find a shift to those that are indeed “family friendly.”
In a 2002 poll by Reston, Virginia based TrueCareers, more than 70% of workers do not think there is a healthy balance between work and their personal lives. More than 50% of the 1,626 respondents reported they are exploring new career opportunities because of the inability to manage both work and family stressors.
In a comparative survey by Atlanta-based staffing firm Randstad North America, in the year 2000, 54% rated family the most important priority compared to almost 70% in 2002.
For working professional women it is not unusual stop out of work (“off ramping) to care for children, parents or other family demands. In fact, in a recent study by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce published in Harvard Business Review on differences in “off ramping” found that 44% of the women reported leaving the “fast lane” for “family time” compared with only 12% of men.
According to a Family and Work Institute study conducted in 2004, over 16% of employees bring work home at least once a week—up from 6% in 1977.
What makes these work/family issues more striking is that working hours in other countries are flat or even declining. For example, France recently enacted a 35-hour work week and mandatory vacations for all employees. According to the International Labor Organization, as of 2000, Americans are working more hours than the Japanese (1,966 hours per year compared to 1,889) and to every European country surveyed.
What Can Be Done: Health and Productivity Management
A focus on Health and Productivity Management (HPM) can become a competitive advantage to organizations with an emphasis on reducing employee stress and focusing on optimizing wellness in the workforce. Successful lifestyle modification can be facilitated by coaches using structured engagements to assist employees to increase awareness, set behavioral goals and develop effective stress and health management coping skills. Using a motivational interviewing style, coaches can help clients successfully make meaningful lifestyle changes and contribute to the health of both the individual and organization.
One of the biggest challenges of a coach is attempting to link an individual employee’s health goals to an organization’s profitability and productivity goals. Despite the challenge, a growing body of evidence in the field of health and productivity management (HPM) suggests that investments in the overall health of an employee do contribute to the organization’s bottom line. For example, individuals on disability comprise about 10% of all employees but they account for over 50% of all employee health costs in most organizations.
Published studies have consistently reported positive return on investment for worksite wellness/health promotion programs for employees. For example, a recent comprehensive review of 56 worksite health promotion studies found that 28 showed an average reduction of 26% in health care costs and 25 measuring absenteeism showed an average of 27% reduction.
For one’s client, the HPM literature can help make a convincing case that productivity and health are not incompatible—they are supported by the same lifestyle behaviors. The role of the coach is to facilitate a process for employees to gain awareness of his/her behaviors and translate them into meaningful lifestyle change efforts resulting in optimizing both health and organizational effectiveness.
Lifestyle Modification Coaching
Consultation regarding lifestyle behaviors has seemed to be part of the domain of physicians, psychologists and other health professionals—not the arena for executive coaches. It can be argued that coaching for lifestyle modification fits well into the concerns of coaches attempting to increase effectiveness and performance of clients within organizations.
The increasing prevalence of work stress, job/family imbalance and chronic health problems related to lifestyle have a direct adverse affect on individuals and organizations. Helping employees initiate and maintain healthy behavior changes is of increasing importance for the prevention and management of these problems.
In two recent prospective studies of ours, employees in a large aerospace and public utility organization who exercised more regularly, practiced positive overall health habits, had higher scores on resilience/hardiness and utilized appropriate emotion based coping reported significantly less absenteeism due to physical illness, less reported job burnout and greater job satisfaction at the end of a one-year period. Improving the total health of the workforce (physical and psychological) through formal programs as well as executive lifestyle coaching would appear to be important strategies for increasing productivity and competitive advantage.
Time to get my guide dog puppy Ajax out for his daily long walk before he goes back to work….Be well….
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