Every client comes to me with their own unique needs in coaching, but almost universally, clients complain that they need a better work-life balance. Just about everyone feels like work is consuming their time, crowding out time devoted to family, friends, hobbies, and the day-to-day errands that are necessary in any life.
I try to help clients drill down into ways they can achieve more control over the boundaries between work and the rest of their lives. Recently I’ve been digging into some of the research, and I’ve realized that simply drawing better boundaries or practicing better time management are not always the solutions to clients’ sense the work and life are out of balance. The issue is often more complex than work bleeding into life.
Research has shown that we all have a preference for how we navigate the relationship between work and personal life. Some of us want strict boundaries between our work and our personal lives. Researchers call these people are segmentors.
Others prefer a more porous boundary between work and personal life. Researchers calls these people integrators. As the label implies, they like to have some flexibility. They don’t even mind having some overlap between work life and personal life.
An integrator may not mind editing a report at home, responding to email messages while cooking the family dinner, or taking time out of the work day to take care of a bit of personal business. They like to talk shop outside work. In fact, they relish the control of deciding how to manage their time.
A segmentor hates that kind of juggling. They don’t want to bring their kid to work or answer a work phone call after hours, and they sure don’t want to talk about work with their family and friends.
It’s a spectrum. Some of us might lean toward being integrators but still want to have a bit more control over boundaries between home and work. Integrators don’t like punching a clock or being expected to do “face time.” They want a boss who trusts them to manage their time so that they get the job done. Integrators might prefer remote work. The down side of this flexibility is that the imbalance between work and time spent on personal life can sneak up on an integrator. Personally I lean toward being an integrator, but that means I often don’t know when to stop working.
Other people lean toward being segmentors. They can occasionally integrate when it’s absolutely necessary. But people who prefer to be segmentors and are frequently forced to integrate by the demands of a particular workplace can find the work-life balance getting out of whack. Segmentors don’t like it when they are asked to shift their working hours at the drop of a hat or repeatedly respond to text messages from the boss after hours. They may hate remote work because it erodes those boundaries between work and personal life.
Tech entrepreneur Christelle Rouhat observes that she can often tell the difference between segmentors and integrators by the tools they use to organize their lives. A segmentor probably prefers to have a work calendar and a home calendar while an integrator want to have all that information in one place.
It’s important to know which style you prefer and then do all you can to find a workplace and leader who will support your style. Big organizations have to support all kinds of employees. Talk with your supervisor about your work style and boundary preferences. Look for workplaces and leaders who will support you in the style that is most likely to boost your performance. Use all the time and information management tools at your disposal. Research your employer’s policies on flexible hours, remote work, and other options, and ask your supervisor to work with you on developing a plan that will best fit your work style.
And if you’re the leader of a team, here are some good suggestions from the folks at the Wharton School of Executive Education on how to support both work style preferences among your team members.
What’s your work style? The first step is recognizing your preferences. The next step is crafting a plan that works to help you achieve the kind of work-life balance you want.
Segmentation image by Petra from Pixabay; Integration Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.