Let’s get real about Work Life balance! If you count on the employers to help you solve the issue by offering employee benefits, it’s not happening any time soon.

The subject of the work life balance has been debated forever in academic circles and among human resource professionals but the changes are slow to come. Corporations, large and small, have dragged their feet to make meaningful solutions to accommodate men and women with family. This is not to say that single people do not need the work-life balance but relatively, they have more control on their life and priorities. They can juggle time and activities more readily than people who have committed to be in marriage and everything that comes along with it. Though, for the single parents, the issues are no different than the ones for the married couples with kids. The feeling of losing control is more prevalent in the families that have young people or the elderly or sick members, for whom have they have responsibility for nurturing and care giving.

In fairness, some smaller and mid-sized businesses, who have to compete for good and talented employees, have worked out some flexibility in the office time. They are allowing some leeway regarding when the employees can arrive and leave the office, offering telecommuting options and working from home or part time jobs with ‘mommy track’ when children are in school. However, no American business has looked at family as a part and parcel of an employee’s life. It would be a long wait before employers consider an employee‘s life in totality of various roles they play in their life, and incorporate that fact in to business practices. In other words you, the employee has to compartmentalize family vs. work. Even these flexibility benefits do not alleviate the stress totally, although every bit helps.

Large corporations have provided some family friendly perks and benefits only when mandated, such as maternity leave for expectant parents, holding the job open while a new mother is on maternity leave and allowing flexibility in case of sickness or accidents and medical appointments. However, business world still thinks in terms of “work is work”. Workers’ family is not on their radar and as such, not a concern.

Today’s Reality: Life and Work are Seamless

On the other hand, from the employees’ standpoint, the trend has been toward integrating life and work because frequently they have to set aside some evenings at home for work because the workload has increased. Businesses use fewer and fewer human resources to gain maximum productivity at the lowest possible cost. This means that eight hours in a work day are never enough. Many professionals spend hours in back-to-back meetings and get to do real thinking only in the late afternoon, so it is not surprising that work has to be done on private time at home, further eroding the personal time on family and other roles. This is overwhelming and leads to a feeling of inadequacy, guilt and being out of control and of being a victim. Thus, employee has the onus of managing the stress.

I should know! I have lived through this life even when work–life balance was not formally recognized as an issue! As they say, necessity is mother of invention and so my family and I came up with some strategies for managing the work-life issues as a matter of surviving through it all.

Talk Openly with Family

I was raising two sons, five and three years old and a third child on the way, when I decided to sign up for an evening MBA program at a nearby university. I went through a lot of worry about who will cook and how would house be maintained and laundry folded and kids will be cared for etc. The usual worries of the daily life variety! I shared those worries with my husband and he just asked me, what will you trade off to get this degree? And once you get the degree, what will you do with it? In other words, why is this important to you? Talking openly about this resulted in some viable strategies. We talked about the following:

• What can be shared, delegated, minimized or eliminated?
• Who can you rely on?
• What can be streamlined or delegated?
• What will you sacrifice?

Simplify, Eliminate, Delegate

Here is what emerged as the strategies and tactics; the nitty-gritty stuff to manage personal life along with the professional life.
BY going over the daily chores and responsibilities, we arrived at the decision that I would continue with cooking and childcare responsibilities in the daytime, while he will take care of the child care needs in the evening. He will also help with some kitchen responsibilities like doing the pots and pans and utensils and putting away things. We eliminated the clutter of dirty dishes and cups and glasses with paper goods. Throughout my school years this routine was maintained as did some other routines that added lot of efficiencies and manageability.

We simplified the daily morning rituals of dressing the kids in matching clothes and socks and all that by simply buying coordinated clothes, wash and wear-no iron variety, that can be literally hung in closet as a set, so as not waste time every day in figuring what goes with what; five set for five days, hung at lower heights so that kids can pick and dress up with minimal help. All the socks were in black or neutral colors in the same style and pattern, so we do not waste time on figuring out pairing of socks. The shoes and sneakers right there under the clothes, so no time wasted in looking for them.

For chores like the laundry folding and basic cleaning, we hired a mother’s helper- a high school student who was happy to earn the pocket money. I was okay with trading some of my standards for “good enough” work, as long as the order and neatness was maintained. She also did double-duty as an occasional baby-sitter when needed. Her familiarity with our household and our kids’ routines was a comfort factor to us.

That was relatively simple because I was still home bound and was not accountable to anyone but myself. However, a few years down the road, when I took a full time job, we had to rejigger our routines somewhat. It was not sustainable to use paper goods all the time and out of sheer sense of decorum that I wanted to instill in my growing children. By then, they were old enough to participate and take some responsibilities. Specific responsibilities like setting up the dinner table and cleaning the table afterward, emptying the garbage were assigned in rotation. They were responsible for picking up their own clutter. We kept an eye on their study habits but trusted them to do their homework and assisted if they needed help.

You Don’t Have to Do It All

The point of this narrative is that, I had to accept the fact that as the mom of the house, I did not have to do it all. I had to get my buy-in from my family members, build a support system and delegate and accept help. And I had to create routines and time- tables and cultivate self-discipline to achieve. In times of stress, reminding myself why I was working and that I chose to work to build a career was helpful in managing stress. I had a definite purpose and a goal.

Shift Your Perspective

Talking to my friends and colleagues, I realized that stress comes from the conflict that we feel when we fall short of fulfilling our societally defined roles; men as fathers vs. bread winners, women as the mothers, nurturers and caregivers vs. professionals. Stepping out of those roles and carving out time for additional roles, whether by circumstances or choice, inevitably feels like stealing time away, which in turn created a sense of guilt. Guilt in turn results in stress because we feel inadequate in all the areas because activities stretch out end to end. The real culprit is ambivalence.

If you look at your situation not as stealing time away from the family but rather as what are my efforts contributing to the family’s greater good, then the ambivalence is pushed back.

This is why asking yourself why you are in this situation is very important and what does it mean to you personally and to your family members in the short run and in the long run? If you can give a clear answer to this question, the ambivalence will disappear and your stress level will become manageable.

Use the Same Skills at Home that You Use at Work

We can come home to our safe haven and kick off the heels, get into comfortable clothes and allow some down time to connect with our family and relax but we must realize that the rules for achieving goals at home are no different than at work.

Truth be told, you need the same skill set for achieving your goals: Planning, envisioning strategy, setting priorities, delegating, motivating, executing well and managing finances.

Self-discipline and good time management skills are as important at home. Fortunately, now we can use the technologies to gain efficiencies. We can maintain our social and personal calendar, shop online, keep track of kids and their homework or whereabouts remotely, hire help for home maintenance through online referral services using the personal devices, things that were not possible in the last decade.