How many of you are reflecting that due to Corona outbreak a proper work-life balance is crucial to succeed personally and professionally?

How many of you are realizing that your own kids or friends are noticing you are working at crazy hours of the day because you are doing it from home?

“Daddy/Mommy, why are you kidnapped by work?”

Well, maybe they are not using the word “kidnapped” but certainly in my case my little 4 year old who has been “stuck” in the house for more than a month now, comes often to my desk asking: “Daddy, when are you coming to play with me”, and every time, it breaks my heart to tell him I cant do it because I am busy with work.

One side of the equation is us as professional who should realise about when and how much we are working, its time to open our eyes. The other side of the coin is that organizations and leadership have to take care of the people by ensuring they dont over-work, burnout, and have the proper balance, but they really need to mean it.

Companies who just say “We give the freedom to people to manage their time” is not good enough. They need to proactively work with their employees to ensure this is being respected. They dont have to just “say it” they really need to enforce it as one of the cornerstones of the organizations culture.

Yes, there will be times where the extra mile will be needed due to a delivery to a customer or an important deadline. But those should be the exception and not the common way of work.

COVID19 is reminding us the important things of life by messing with our core as human beings. All this situation is triggering on a lot of us valid questions like “Why we are doing what we are doing?”, “Are we happy with what we do?” “Do we want to continue doing what we are doing and how we are doing it?”, and its OK.

Its a good time to #reflect, open our eyes, your colleagues eyes, leadership has to realise the world has changed and it will continue to change at a faster pace than we imagined. Its time to pay attention to our people and genuinely contribute to a better work-life balance.