What is Ergonomics?- No work after 5 pm? And 4 days work week, How sweet is that?

This topic isn’t about the cliche discussion of Work Life Balance, but i would say it is something which will impact work life balance for sure for many of us and the way we are working.

Someone is really researching ergonomics (the study of people's efficiency in their working environment) and implementing it for sure, glad to know it is impacting positively.

The recent decision ( not sure if it is a pilot for some months and results of this decision is still not published) by Amit Agarwal - Amazon India Head to its employees not to answer calls and emails after office working hours is path breaking and a bold decision when rest of other organisations associated with Amazon are working as usual. Can only imagine the disruption and the impact of this decision in other organisations.

Amit also advised of not to take any decisions between 6pm and 8am. Seriously, not sure how are they going to survive! but is it just the beginning of a change or a trend for others to follow? Or just another attempt with no impact.

But i hope the impact is so intense that most of the organisations follow this!

Kudos to Amit Agarwal! Well done.

Another example in New Zealand company named Perpetual Guardian is having 4 day working week and giving 3 day weekly off, isn’t this sweeter? When you are paid for 5 days in week! 

This is a pilot and its been almost 7 months they are into this not sure on when they are making it permanent.

Sounds like a dream isn’t it? 

Somewhere people are realising the importance or life over work and thats good.

Recently i came across this video, viral in whatsapp,  Video is created by UNIQUE ViDeOs AA , In this video, an employee of a private organisation is leaving at 5:30 pm and his team member sarcastically comments - “Oh so you are leaving Half Day!”

The employee who is leaving office on time mentions something very interesting which is worth listening.

(Ignore profanity)

You are killing yourself for a job that would replace you within a week, if you dropped dead. Take care of yourself - Jet Li

Jet Li has mentioned something which we know but we do not realise, does this sentence sound contradictory to you? Read it again.

There are employees giving more than 100% to their job, some are getting recognised, some want to be recognised, I think thats awesome.

But i also think 100% at what cost, we all know this term “Opportunity Cost” and many other terms similar to this.

Have we ever related this to our life? I think we should.

Many of us work/read/respond to emails late evenings, sometimes in the night and worst in the weekends- but i agree sometimes it is needed for certain projects tasks, but why do we get habituated? 

Smart Phones have they made you slaves? One ring of the phone or one ring of an email, doesn’t it makes you read the email and then makes you respond! 

Have heard of people dropping dead in offices, Japanese have termed this as  karoshi, which translates as “death by overwork”.

There are people who do not turn in office suddenly the next day due to heart attacks or brain stroke, some get it in offices itself in a very young age of 30’s or 40’s.

What do colleagues do is feel sorry for the person, condolences for their family and forget it in some weeks.But have you ever thought this can happen to anyone, what are we doing to live our life and not spend 90% of our time in office or for office?

Life happens just once, So make decisions wisely.

So, even if in your organisation or lifetime, this 4 day work week and No work after 5 pm is not implemented.

Please find some time for yourself and your family and draw this sweet line between work and life.

Do not live to work, but work to live.

Finally three things you should ask yourself,

     1. If you are spending more than 12 to 14 hours in a day     working+travelling and on top of that working in weekends, you are about to sink!

     2. Ask yourself, whom or what are you working for? For me its Family, for you it must be something else.

Are you able to give time to your family or that something what you are working for?if not, whats the use? You are half sunk already! 

     3. If overwork and stress is impacting your health, then it is an alarm life is giving you.

        

I am not even coming close to giving a solution for this or an advise on what to do for work life balance, i do not think i can do that as every person and the situation with the person is so different, demanding and dynamic.

Every person should weigh their needs, wants and take decisions

Some do not even have a choice, but if god has given you a opportunity to make this choice, make good use of this opportunity.
Good Luck!