WOMEN, WORK & THE ART of SAVOIR FAIRE by MIREILLE GUILIANO

Author:MIREILLE GUILIANO
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC027020
Publisher: ATRIA BOOKS
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

ZEN AND THE ART OF BUSINESS (LIFE)

One day I was sitting in my Clicquot office in New York when a cold call came in from someone in London. The person wanted me to speak to a group of women about “my philosophy.” I took the call. It came at a time when French Women Don’t Get Fat was on all the British bestseller lists, and the caller turned out to represent a speakers bureau. Would I give a keynote address for a group of executive women at a conference outside London, a professional development retreat with an emphasis on time-life management strategies? Sounded interesting, so, after some more details and give-and-take, I said yes, with two conditions. One was that they had to serve our company’s Champagne and the second was I would only do it if I could tag it onto the beginning or end of one of my monthly trips to Europe. It worked out.

The group turned out to be from a famous investment banking firm, and the young, bright women there were investment bankers near burnout. Indeed, the purpose of the posh retreat was for the firm to retain some of this high-priced, highly trained talent. Money was not the issue for these women. They were earning plenty but had no time to spend it. Some had country houses and cottages they rarely saw. Ditto kids and husbands. They did not want more corporate perks; even the luxurious retreat complete with spa services was stressful for some of them. They wanted their lives back. And apparently a goodly number were quitting to that end.

The need to find a balance between work life and personal life is not restricted to women, of course, and has become one of the great struggles among today’s workers and working wounded, but it is especially resonant among women. The very expression work-life balance derives from conflicts recorded a generation ago by working mothers in their place of business. “Enlightened” companies such as the one sponsoring the conference and human resource departments increasingly are addressing the topic and exploring solutions because it has become both a recruitment and retention issue, a productivity issue in terms of health-care costs and lost time as well as bottom-line profit and growth return on investment, and it certainly can adversely affect customer service and relations. Moreover, it may well become an overall talent issue in America, as 77 million baby boomers retire versus 44 million replacements in the upcoming generation (though America has always relied on importing talent when needed).

Work-life balance has a lot more to do with you, though, than with your job or company. When the first labor laws for women and children were introduced in the United States, in 1874, the State of Massachusetts fixed an enforceable limit of sixty hours a week. (Many a week I would have welcomed that limit.)

Around the world today, the time people spend at work and at the office continues to creep back to yesteryear, when ten hours a day, six days a week were accepted in agriculture and industry.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.