'Work Life Balance' can be misleading

More than 80 of the region's professional women met at the Hampshire Rose Bowl in Southampton recently to examine the impact of misleading messages sent out by the term 'Work Life Balance'. "The term implies that whilst we are at work, we are not living," said keynote speaker Lizz Clarke at the work shop, which was the latest in a regular series of women's networking events organised by one of the south's leading law firms, Coffin Mew LLP.

Lizz Clarke, Managing Director of LCM, a marketing & pr agency based in Fareham, agreed some years ago to put LCM for a government pilot to improve work life balance in the workplace. "The immediate impact of the work carried out by the work life balance consultants was to make us feel that hours spent at work were somehow negative and what had been a very informal 'give and take' culture turned, rather quickly, into a clockwatching scenario."

During the workshop Lizz encouraged the participants to think about what causes people to feel they might have an imbalance in their lives on the basis that it is better to look at causes of problems before endeavouring to find solutions. 

Time pressures, feelings of guilt and the burden on expectations were cited by the participants as some of the main causes of imbalance.

The Coffin Mew Women’s networking event is the brain-child of solicitor Sarah Humphrey who specialises in Commercial Property.

“I felt it important that the firm should provide a forum where professional women who work and live in our region could learn from each other as well as from other professional speakers about some the issues that affect them in their own lives.

“Whether at work or not, we can all benefit by understanding how others deal with often complex work-life arrangements. However, in the end it comes down to the ability to think positively and to find solutions that provide the best fit for our own particular lifestyles,” said Sarah Humphrey.