Does the work day ever end?

There is an absolute melding between what is work life and what is leisure. We have to make the work week as interesting as the weekend.

There is an absolute melding between what is work life and what is leisure. The challenge for employers is to make the work week as interesting as the weekend, because with blackberries, mobile phones and email – leisure time is becoming more like work.

Many employees are now expected to be ‘on call & available’ people who receive emails at 10.00pm at night and they are expected to have answered before 7.00am the next day.

I met a man this week who works for a major telco and he said if he has his ‘crackberry’ with him on weekends he just can’t help himself – he has to check in on what is going on. So he now has a different mobile phone – just for the weekend.

Down time is just as important as work time – having no time to be creative and think things through means that new ideas and innovation are much harder to come by.

I was speaking with a friend of mine last night who told me of a person who was simply the most successful in his field – and he only worked 4 hours a day. The rest of the time he spent ‘playing’, reading and learning about completely different subjects.

I am just back from holidays – and I have come back with a million ideas. It is so, so very important to have creative time. That is what is where they great stuff comes from.

All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl – isn’t that how the saying goes.

Comments

Anup writes:  Value creation in a company is closely entertwined to employee motivation. There are three things employees value most : (A) The Job Role (How interesting is the role and how much learning/exposure they get in it) (B) Respect/Camarederie : How much are they valued for there ideas, work and individuality (C) Money A new emerging factor is there sense of purpose/accomplishment, specially representing an ideology. That is where the green organisations and charities get browny points.

 Mango writes: This article pretty much said what we are experience in our work place. I used to work in a place where I have the same value as the owner and I was very happy there. In this work place, people just have so much fear and afraid of change, failure to see the potential in people. Those questions that you have above every question was positive when I used to work in a place with similar values!

Sally writes: I totally agree! And sometimes it just takes hearing another business owner say it, to remind you that you don’t always have to be there, you too need time away both for the business and for yourself. The best moments in a persons life come from when you step out of what you know and give yourself time to create. Whether it is an hour at the gym without the phone with you, or a walk along the coast before the sun goes down… that time is when the really really brilliant ideas become clear.