What does Work/Life Balance look like to you?

We have regular staff meetings for the Human Resources/Learning & Organizational Development team. At our last meeting the discussion came up about the changing nature of what Work/Life balance means in today's work environment.

Through my years at Pinnacol the company has had the philosophy that the best employees were those who could maintain a healthy Work/Life balance. The thought was that those who focus solely on work would not best represent Pinnacol to our customers and would likely be tough to be around and would eventually suffer from overwork and burnout. Clearly technology has had a major impact on what Work/Life balance looks like in today's world. Not only can people be connected to Work remotely they can also bring Life to work (how often do you check Facebook, personal e-mail, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc. during the work day?).

I have candidates ask me about Work/Life balance at Pinnacol all the time. There are a couple of things I tell them:

• Pinnacol tries to staff accordingly so that our employees are not routinely working too many hours (not every employee at Pinnacol works only 40 hours a week, but we frown if we see them routinely working 50-60 hour weeks)
• We offer some flexible scheduling to accommodate those who prefer to come in early and leave early as well as those who like to come in later. The caveat here is that as long as the work is getting done there is considerable flexibility.
• Telecommuting is not a widespread practice at Pinnacol currently. We are in a team environment, we have our fair share of meetings throughout the day, and the preference is for people to be physically present to be able to interact in person. This one is a hot topic for our employees though and we continue to discuss possible options. 
• Our work week is generally Monday through Friday 8 to 5 (some specialized staff in I.T., Facilities, etc. occasionally work outside of normal business hours) which most employees enjoy as it allows them time to be with their families who often work that same type of schedule.  

All this aside, I don't know that it answers the core question - what is Work/Life balance? I know that when I'm not at work I'm often still thinking about work (some of my best work-related ideas come in the shower). I do a lot of cycling and for me that's my truly work-free time. I was at a youth sporting event not too long ago and observed a father along the sidelines. Rather than watching his child participate he was clearly busy working on his phone. Is that Work/Life balance? Maybe for him it was. I used to have a supervisor who would send out e-mails in the middle of the night. Fortunately she didn't expect an immediate response! For her that may have been the definition of Work/Life balance. 

Part of me worries that we have simply moved away from the focus on balance and have crossed over into simply trying to juggle both aspects of Work and Life unsuccessfully. The positive thing is that the conversation is alive and well at Pinnacol. We clearly don't have all the answers but at least we're open to discussing it. Work/Life balance may be a moving target but hopefully we'll continue to make progress. What does Work/Life balance mean to you?