Work and Family Balance

While I was working at Johnson & Johnson, we developed a strategy to improve productivity of all workers and we called it WORK AND FAMILY BALANCE.  With so much attention these days on productivity I thought I would share with you a little about this strategy and how it can make you even more productive in both work and family.

If you grew up in America like me you have heard your entire life that the key to success in life is to work hard.  Further, the culture generally lambasted anyone who was not working hard, was lazy or sloughed their duties so long as it was work related.  It always seemed hypocritical to then ignore our home life duties and sacrifice our commitment to family on the altar of work.  In other words to be lazy in your duties at home.  What gives?

We learned that people are most productive when they are trusted to manage their time for both ends of their responsibility.  If one side or the other is sacrificed, then people actually are less productive in both.  I am sure you have seen this at work when someone is a so called WORK-AHOLIC.  In my experience people who over committed time to work were generally not as productive as people who had balance.  Let me explain.

People who are fulfilling their life's commitments with responsibility on both areas are generally more successful and experience more happiness in life.  A happy worker is generally more creative, more effective and a better leader.   If you want your own performance or workplace to be full of productive workers then start promoting a balance between work and family.  Further, you need to promote this concept for the culture at work to buy in.  Finally, if you review performance and leave this out, then you are all talk and no walk.

Well how then do you implement such a policy.  You start with yourself.  At J&J we said to support this strategy we trusted everyone to know best how to achieve the balance and the balance was important.  So we left it to each employee so sit with their supervisor or manager and work out the BALANCE PLAN for them.  It was very individualistic.  If a Mom needed to support her family by taking her child to the dentist, no approval for this was needed, just notification.  If a Dad needed to support his child as a coach, no permission was needed just notification.  This trusting element fostered better working relationships, removed a ton of stress from work and improved the conditions generally in the business producing better top line and bottom line results.  At the end of the day this strategy worked big time and is still used today 25 years later and it is why J&J is seen as a leader in human relations in the workplace.

So if you are a leader or a worker, we know how to make you more productive and get better results at work - achieve a better balance between work and family.  You will need your two bosses to buy in - one at work and one at home.  Once the buy-in is in place, watch your tendency to over commit to work and you are well on your way to fulfilling your true potential as a worker and a Dad/Mom.  Good luck.