Balancing Act: Get Your Life Back And Still Stay Connected

  Lessons Learned   Talent Management   PM Network  

You carefully evaluate and measure out schedule, scope and budget long before project work even begins. But when was the last time you put your work and personal life on a balance scale?

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for project professionals to maintain a healthy work/life balance, given an increased focus on lean and just-in-time processes and a growing reliance on virtual workers who are expected to always be on call.

Half of all respondents to a 2011 Deloitte survey of U.S. executives planned to intensify existing productivity improvement programs, including lean operations, to further reduce costs. And three of four respondents to a 2011 poll by talent management firm Right Management already employed virtual workers; of those, nearly half expected the number of virtual workers to increase in 2012.

This round-the-clock work environment can take a toll on project professionals. “Most projects have sharp deadlines, and the pressure on company costs is resulting in more complex environments and job expectations,” says Dirk De Wolf, project management office (PMO) manager at Tech Data, an IT product provider in Brussels, Belgium. “This impacts the business in such a way that sometimes things can only be accomplished by working after hours or on weekends.”

A May study by nonprofit Catalyst reports that 50 percent of Asian …

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