Who is responsible for maintaining the work/life balance, the employee or the employer?
Yesterday, in a training session, my group and I were discussing what factors motivate us to give our best at on the job. One of the trainees, an HR Manager, cited a balance between her work and personal lives as her strongest motivator. The others in her group quickly agreed.
I'm not sure I agree completely with their classification of work-life balance as a motivator...I think a LACK of balance can certainly be a strong DE-motivator, but the discussion made me think about the question I raised at the beginning: Who bears the responsibility for this balance?
It seem logical to me that the balance should be a collaboration between employee and employer, with the employee standing up for the priorities s/he has set in life, and the employer working with him/her to establish and maintain that balance.
What do you think? Since a lack of balance in this area can have such a negative impact on productivity, what can an HR Department do to demonstrate to employees their willingness to work together on this matter?
I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Jen, I think it depends on the job.

Back in Australia, I was out of the office 90% of the week on sales calls, and I looked forward to hanging out with my workmates. We would play mixed netball/soccer/rugby each Tuesday. We would catch up for after-work drinks on Thursdays and Friday. And most Saturdays we would bump into each other at barbeques or cocktail parties. I was definitely 'unbalanced' by the common definition of work-life balance. But I enjoyed it!

I still have the same mentality.

Life_style_ may vary from one and another, but find a kind of life_style_ that fits you best should be pursued by everyone.

There are some major benefits of being fit. You can do more, you live longer, you feel better, and be more alive.

Personally, I prefer a casual life_style_ rather than to be in a state of busy activity. I would like to have a get-together with my friends. Walk around in a park and play outdoor activities. It might be not wonderful in someone's eyes, but I enjoy such a life_style_.

Like "when you say nothing at all" says: "I wanna it that way..."

Frankly,the balance between work & life is really difficult to maintain in people's real life.But for me,I try my best to keep the balance.For example,I'd like to travel or play sports in my leisure time,therefore ,I get much motivation on job.So in my opinion,the key factor which is responsible for maintanining the balance is ourselves.

If you want to hit the right balance then you should make sure that employees feel that its acceptable to go home at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, in todays work environment too many companies give lip serivce to worklife balance , they talk about it but at the same time they ask their employees to do more work in less time to a higher standard. Work life balance should be the initial responsibility of employers to make it turn into reality.

This is a topic that I discussed recently within one of my upper level training classes. I asked trainees to provide eight pieces of advice they would give to a German relocating to China for three years.

Much of the advice was very standard (learn to use chopsticks and learn some basic Chinese phrases) but other trainees thought harder about the differences between German work practice and Chinese work behaviour.

One trainee offered, "don't expect Chinese employees to work late into the evenings".

I asked why.

The trainee replied with the following:

"Our German managers work until 8pm or 9pm every night, but most of them do not have families expecting them home earlier. Also, they have a car and driver, where as we are expected to take the shuttle bus home. Finally, it is not healthy to eat late at night, we prefer to eat early in the evening."

All of his points made good sense and were offered in a very structured way.

It seems to me that many local employees have a better work/life balance, and therefore (very possible) better time management skills than myself and my western peers.