30.11.2009
The business - family parody,
Working long hours, dedicating a large part of your free-time to work often at the expense of your own personal life.
We've been puzzled by the trade-offs between the personal and business life, and how one always seems to shadow the other. Especially in the current atmosphere, where everyone has to make do with what they have and keep proving themselves, not just to their supervisors, but to even to themselves. Is it truly an overlap in priorities - do you actually have to choose? And what if you didn't?
As with most of the bigger issues in life, it often boils down to your own values and what you stand for. The way we see it, is that work should not be something that invades on your own life, it should be something that makes your life a little better. Work satisfaction and how we take care of our people, seems to be the first thing to sink on the priority list as we have to make cut backs. What's alarming, cheaper labor in the short-term does not necessarily make cheaper labor on the long-term. And furthermore, uninspired and over-perspired employees are surely not a healthy choice for either the company or the people.
So is it simply a beautiful idea that you could have both? A beautiful, inspiring family and a prosperous, fulfilling career? Surely was putting a man on the moon a tougher challenge than a question of uncompromising work and social ethics. If the biggest challenge that lay before us is a question of social and human responsibility, shouldn't we be able to make work fulfilling for all it's stakeholders? Not just the employees, but also their families.
There have been some bright examples of how we treat our employees, but we think we're still way off. Shouldn't work be something that fires you up and inspires you, just like your own life? We believe it should.
Here's hoping we can do something about it.
Markus