Cicero Policy Briefer

Issue 10, March 2007

Seeking Work-Life Balance: On a journey from Wobbly to Wembley

By Peter Barnett, Head of External Affairs, UnumProvident

I can’t wait for the new Wembley stadium to open for business, because I’m sure that once it does all the unfortunate issues surrounding its construction will be forgotten. And crowning it will be the wonderful 133 metre tall arch—the longest single roof structure in the world!

The fact that these days we can spectate at an arena under a roof without our sight lines being obstructed by pillars is entirely due to the fact that the weight, of the roof and the resulting stress, has been cantilevered away to supporting structures behind it, or indeed above it—as with the Wembley arch.

So in architecture stress is normal, can be measured and allowed for and indeed often the entire rigidity and strength of a structure is due to the way the stresses are spread away from a pressure point—and without this tension an object would be all floppy and wobbly. However if the calculations are wrong, or the stresses become too great, then the in-built tensioning of a concrete beam will be strained to breaking point and the beam will either deform or fail catastrophically. So moderate stress is useful—even essential—but too much can be overwhelming.

Unfortunately the duality of stress and its accommodating strain working together to provide strength was lost when the term was transferred to the social psychology of industrial life. In that world, pressure or stress is rarely seen in this way as a force for good but is usually seen as a force for bad and any pressure that manifests itself should be quickly removed, and always be done by the employer, or prevented in the first place. It is as if an adverse workplace environment could be the only possible causation.

But is this dangerous pressure we call stress really experienced solely in the workplace? For most of us there are many other stressors of life outside work: non-work ‘life issues’ such as family, finances, teenage children, divorce, parents’ bereavement and so on. If any of these are going wrong, can an employer help, or will such problems outside work stubbornly remain and continue to spill over into our working environment?

Rather, isn’t it the sum of these potential stressors which tip us over the edge, and pressures at work, which we would normally take in our stride, when they are piled on top of our problems outside work, suddenly overwhelm our limited resilience and coping skills? Of course it may be that the work factors are the final straw—but not always.

In reality, of course, stress or pressure itself is a continuum and isn’t all bad. Sometimes pressure stretches us and drives us on to achieve unscaled heights and win undreamed-of victories. But too much at the wrong time can obviously be counterproductive and undesirable, and no stress at all—boredom—can be as destructive to our psyche as too much.

Unfortunately the belief that excess pressure is experienced only in the workplace means that is there where all the corrective action is focused—to reduce ‘work-related stress’. That usually involves trying to achieve a better ‘work-life balance’, i.e. having more ‘life’ and less ‘work’—in your life. I would argue that work is in fact an integral part of life, a key part for sure but not the only part, and not a separate element to be somehow kept in balance with the rest of life outside work.

Work and life are but two faces on the same dice, which sometimes falls with ‘work’ facing up but can as equally throw up one of the other troubles of life for us to worry over. As individuals it is our responsibility to make sure that we have the capacity, the resilience, to cope with most of the pressures that can be thrown at us, either by work or by any of the other aspects of our busy lives.

Peter Barnett is the Head of External Affairs at UnumProvident.

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