I wrote a blog post last year on the topic of “work-life balance” http://bit.ly/fMX1WE. I noted how I don’t like the idea of work-life balance because the term “balance” infers there are two forces opposed to one another. I continue to believe this is a fair characterization as I still know countless people who struggle with the “battle” between their work life and their personal life. Their situation sets work up to be the enemy, even for those who love their jobs.
I proposed we stop seeking work-life balance and instead pursue work-life integration. Integration is “a combination of parts or objects that work together well.” Integration eliminates the perspective of balance so the elements of work life and personal life are no longer compared or opposed to one another. Work-life integration is the attempt to combine our work-life with our personal-life so they “work together well.”
In my post I provided some tips for how today’s professional could integrate their work and personal life, including working when you are at home and telecommuting (via reliable high-speed internet access), involving your family in your job, utilizing Skype for meetings, and using tablet computers. They are all methods I use to seamlessly and successfully integrate my work and personal life.
I concluded my post with Webster’s definition of the term, integration: “the coordination of mental processes into a normal effective personality or with the individual's environment.” I suggested we exploit today’s remote, mobile and portable computing capabilities to “coordinate our mental work processes with our personal life environments” and that we stop trying (and failing) to balance our two lives (work and our personal).
I continue to believe in work-life integration which is why I am a huge fan of the “consumerization of IT trend” that continues to pick up steam and make headway into enterprises today. I have been a fan from the start of the consumerization-of-IT and I have never agreed with the folks who view the trend as a threat to IT. In my first blog post on the subject I noted how IT should embrace and enable the consumerization of IT as a means to improve their relationship with users and foster more business-driven innovation http://bit.ly/oUQvHa . My second post on the topic described how the consumerization-of-IT can be leveraged to achieve enterprise mobility http://bit.ly/r6oGAs.
What I didn’t note in either post is how the trend can contribute to the goal of work-life integration. The benefits are obvious. If enterprises and their IT organizations make it easy for their employees to use their personal devices at work, they will in turn make it easier for their employees to conduct work at home. Think of the possibilities if IT enabled employees’ personal smartphones and tablets to access corporate email, ERP, CRM, and other internal systems and data. Imagine if it is just as easy to see the latest project data, market analysis, sales forecasts, or software test results as it is to play “Words with Friends” and “Angry Birds.” How much more might someone at home be engaged in their work if they did not have to fire up their laptop and logon to systems? How easy would it be to respond to an off-hours query or alert if all they had to do was access an app on their smartphone?
I know that some people do not like the idea of work-life “interrupting” home-life, but these folks are not likely to subscribe to my views on work-life integration in the first place. But for the many who have no choice but to attend to work matters at all hours almost every day, making their access easier, quicker, and integrated with their personal “consumer” devices will be most welcome. Enabling work-life integration is yet another reason IT organizations should be embracing the consumerization of IT.
~ Steve ~