A Brief History of Work-Life Balance

The dynamic between employer and employee has been evolving from slavery and serfdom, through an industrial revolution where technology and capital gave almost complete dominance to the employer, to a point where workers’ rights are backed by law. Some of those made powerful and wealthy by the industrial revolution saw the surrounding inequality and poverty and acted philanthropically to improve the lives of workers. After two devastating world wars, the British public wanted social reform, and the Welfare State was born. Coupled with a growth in the power of the unions, there was no going back to the absolute power of the employer. A compliant generation of workers gave way to a more vocal society, keen to rebalance the demands of work with improved quality of life. Despite steady improvements in workers’ conditions, the machine metaphor persists, seeing workers as resources not that different from energy, machinery, warehouses. Such metaphors influence thinking and decision-making and hinder evolution to a more human-centric approach in which joint purpose and aims, agreed by all stakeholders, gradually become centre stage, and engagement of the whole person becomes a possibility.