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Lecture Notes
Chapter 14: Work–Life Balance
Learning Objectives
14.1. Discuss the impact of work–life balance on professional excellence
14.2. Define work–life balance
14.3. Identify the triggers to imbalance
14.4. Develop strategies for achieving work–life balance
14.5. Apply the KEYS approach to achieve professional excellence regarding work–life balance
Chapter Summary
Chapter 14 discusses the impact of work–life balance on professional excellence, defines work–
life balance and identifies the triggers to imbalance, describes how to develop strategies for
achieving work–life balance, and explains how to apply the KEYS approach to achieve
professional excellence regarding work–life balance.
Chapter Outline
I. The Importance of Work–Life Balance
A. Work–Life Balance
1. Imbalance between your work life and personal life can negatively influence
the way you communicate.
2. Fosters meaningful and successful relationships at home and at work
3. Necessary to sustain professional excellence
B. Work–Life Balance Defined
1. Boundary is the line or division between work and life.
a. The assumption is that if there is a boundary between work and life,
then balance is the result.
b. Problem is that life can’t be divided neatly into two parts.
2. Definition of Family
a. Complex and controversial
b. Family is the people in a household.
c. Family is people who share something--relationally, mentally,
physically, psychologically, economically, or spiritually.
3. Work is an instrument of activity intended to provide goods and services to
support life.
4. Community is a group of people identified as interdependent and who discuss
actions and share practices and have a concern for the common good.
5. Work–life balance is the accomplishment of role-related expectations that are
negotiated and shared between an individual and his or her role-related partners.
C. Individual Benefits
1. Burnout is chronic exhaustion from persistent workload, decreased motivation,
and apathy toward work.
2. Some causes:
a. Same work with little variation
b. Giving a lot and getting little thanks back
c. No sense of accomplishment or meaning in work
d. Under constant pressure to produce, perform, and meet unrealistic
deadlines
e. Working with difficult people
f. Conflict and tension among workers and abundance of criticism
g. Lack of trust between supervisors and workers, creating conflict rather
than teamwork
h. No opportunities for personal expression or growth
i. Unrealistic demands on time and energy
j. Having jobs that are both personally and professionally taxing without
opportunity for continuing training and growth
k. Unresolved personal conflicts beyond the job situation
D. Organizational Benefits
1. Employee retention--getting employees to continue working for the same
company.
2. Employee attrition--the loss or turnover of employees to other jobs and
industries perceived as having healthier workplace cultures.
II. Triggers to Imbalance
A. Imbalance Triggers
1. Imbalance triggers are experiences that cause professionals to feel drained,
used, abused, and unhappy.
2. Include personality types, difficult people in the workplace, technologically
blurred lines, and life demands
B. Personality Types
1. Type A
a. Highly competitive, driven, focused on time and deadlines, aggressive,
find it difficult to relax
b. Find it a struggle to find balance between work and life
c. High achievers but must work to find balance
2. Type B
a. Laid back, easygoing, don’t find it difficult to relax
b. Trait lends itself to procrastination, last-minute pushing to finish
3. Personality Type AB--combination of both types
C. The Impact of Difficult People on Work–Life Balance
1. Angry Customers and Clients
a. Employee communication skills can optimize customer satisfaction.
b. The emotional and psychological demands of dealing with angry
customers can serve as an imbalance trigger.
c. Leads to staff absenteeism, lack of commitment, burnout, stress, and
turnover
d. Organizations are impacted by product quality and decreased profit.
2. Workplace Bullying
a. Workplace bullying is repeated acts and practices that are directed
intentionally or unconsciously and that cause embarrassment, humiliation,
and stress.
b. Bullying negatively influences job performances, causes an unhealthy
work environment, and leads employees to spend their time away from
work trying to figure out how to survive or cope.
c. Seven Categories
i. Calling out
ii. Using people as scapegoats
iii. Higher-power person sexually harassing
iv. Increased workload and pressure to perform with unrealistic
deadline
v. Targeting an individual--preventing access to opportunities,
withholding information, physically/socially isolating an individual
vi. Failure to give credit and overemphasizing failures
vii. Inflicting physical abuse on or causing harm to an individual or
group
d. Impact of workplace bullying
i. Employee motivation, attitude, focus on tasks are destroyed by
the bully.
ii. Productive, committed, and positive employees will tend to not
go the extra mile.
iii. Organizational change is difficult since the bully is fighting off
all the positive agents for change in the organization.
iv. Workplace bullies act as organizational cancer, eventually
killing the entire business.
3. Workplace Mobbing
a. Workplace mobbing--the nonsexual harassment of a coworker by a
group of other workers or other members of an organization designed to
secure the removal from the organization of the one targeted.
b. Victims are typically accomplished professionals who exemplify
commitment, honesty, integrity, intelligence, innovation, and competence.
c. Mobbing is a group attack on a worker as opposed to an attack by a
single individual.
d. Five phases
i. Phase 1: The triggering event
ii. Phase 2: Aggressive acts and psychological assaults against
the victim
iii. Phase 3: Active involvement of the administration
iv. Phase 4: Labeling of the victim
v. Phase 5: Expulsion
D. Life Demands
1. Household and Family Responsibilities
a. Regardless of our home situation, we all have responsibilities at home
that must be dealt with.
b. Many workers have children or older parents who need care.
2. Health Responsibilities
a. Work-related stress and negative habits that accompany a stressful
lifestyle have a detrimental impact on health.
b. The link between work–life balance, stress, and health can be a vicious
cycle.
III. Strategies for Balance
A. Knowing Yourself
1. Determine the priorities in your life and assess how much time you devote to
each priority.
2. Know your personality type.
3. Learn to say no.
B. Developing Emotional Intelligence
1. Emotional intelligence is your ability to monitor your own and others’ feelings
and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide
your thinking and actions.
2. Understanding Anger
a. Anger is an emotional state that varies in intensity from mild irritation
to intense fury and rage, a feeling of keen displeasure for what we regard
as a wrong toward others or ourselves.
b. People become angry when they encounter real or perceived threats.
c. External triggers to anger are things going on in the environment at
work or at home.
d. Internal triggers are concerns and frustrations you have about past,
current, and future events or a general negativity toward yourself.
e. Avoid counterproductive expressions of anger:
i. Repressing or denying your anger
ii. Displacing anger by projecting it onto the wrong target
iii. Using alcohol, drugs, or other harmful distractions
iv. Treating depression--which may be anger turned inward--solely
as depression
v. Confusing anger with the desire for revenge
3. Releasing Anger in Healthy Ways
a. Admit you are angry.
b. Identify the anger.
c. Ask what you want to accomplish with your anger.
d. Talk it out.
e. Practice relaxation techniques.
f. Use physical exercise to get your anger out.
g. Speak up when you feel angry or shortly afterward.
C. Developing Time-Management Skills
1. Balance in your life means taking control of how you manage your time.
2. Identify external time wasters--things you don’t feel you have control over.
3. Identify internal time wasters--things brought on by mindset, motivation, and
bad habits.
D. Using Technology to Maintain Balance
1. Communication and organization tools can help manage and maintain work–
life balance.
E. Taking a Vacation
1. Many workers in the United States do not take all their vacation days.
2. Organizations and leaders must encourage vacations and tell other workers to
not disturb the person while on vacation.
IV. KEYS to Excellence With Work–Life Balance
A. Know Yourself
1. Know what makes you happy in relation to time both at and away from your
job.
B. Evaluate the Professional Context
1. Assess how and if your company or organization can accommodate your needs
for work–life balance.
C. Your Communication Interaction
1. Can your collaborative work take place away from the office?
D. Step Back and Reflect
1. Determine if both you and your employer are happy with your work–life
balance.
