Work-Family Balance: What Does That Mean to You?

I have spoken in front of many different engineering societies on the topic of career development and before I speak I always try to find out from the attendees what some of their main concerns are around the topic. With regards to career development, many of the comments I received back were related to work-family balance. Most people said something to the effect of, “I would like to have more work-family balance.”

I find this to be very interesting because work-family balance may very well have a different meaning to everyone; however it seems that everyone wants it. What does work-family balance mean? Does it mean you want to be a successful professional but only work 35 to 40 hours per week? Does is mean you want to be a successful professional but only work 50 hours a week? Does it have anything to do with success? Does it have anything to do with your work hours? Maybe you want a job that you can drive to within a half an hour rather than a 75 minute commute each day. Maybe you would prefer to start work at 7 am so you can get home by 5 pm.

Taking it one step further, what can companies do to promote work-family balance or is it not their responsibility to do so?

The bottom line is this, in my opinion work family balance means that you are comfortable with the amount of time you are able to spend with your family during the work week. I ask you the following question; in order for you to no longer say “I would like to have more work-family balance” what would your career look like?

This is a guest post from Anthony Fasano, PE, author of Engineer Your Own Success. Anthony found success as an engineer at a very early age and now writes and podcasts to help other engineers do the same. Visit Anthony’s website at EngineeringCareerCoach.com and subscribe to the top 3 resources Anthony has used to become a partner in a firm at the age of 27.