Every July, as people head off on holiday, the conversation about work-life balance reappears.
Leaders are encouraged to switch off. Employees are reminded to take annual leave. We collectively acknowledge that rest matters.
And whilst I agree with all of that, I’ve increasingly found myself wondering whether we’ve been aiming for the wrong thing altogether.
Because work-life balance has always implied that work and life exist on opposite sides of a scale. That life happens over here, work happens over there, and our job is to stop one taking too much from the other.
But work is part of life.
For most adults, it occupies a huge proportion of our waking hours. It shapes our routines, our relationships, our confidence, our finances, and often our sense of purpose. If something occupies that much of our lives and out psyche, surely the goal shouldn’t simply be balancing it. Surely the goal is making it a healthy part of life.
That is why I increasingly prefer the idea of work-life harmony. Because it reflects a more realistic ambition.
Most people don’t want a life without work. Meaningful work can provide challenge, achievement, growth, connection, and purpose. Many of us enjoy solving problems, contributing to something bigger than ourselves, learning new skills, and feeling that our efforts and capabilities matter.
Work at its best can enhance life. The problem is that many people no longer experience work at its best.
Over the last decade, work has become increasingly complex. Organisations are navigating constant change. Teams are often stretched. Technology has blurred boundaries that once felt clearer. Expectations have increased whilst many people feel they have less time, less capacity, and less certainty than ever before.
Most people can handle periods of pressure remarkably well. In fact, challenge is often where growth, innovation, and achievement come from. The issue is when pressure becomes constant. When urgency becomes the default setting. When recovery is continually postponed because there is always one more deadline, one more email, one more project, one more change initiative.
At that point, something important begins to happen.
Energy becomes focused on getting through the day rather than improving it. Creativity narrows. Patience shortens. Small frustrations become larger ones. Conversations become more transactional. Work that should feel meaningful starts to feel draining instead.
And whilst the human cost is obvious, the organisational cost is often overlooked.
Burnout is expensive. Turnover is expensive. Presenteeism is expensive. So too is the gradual loss of creativity, collaboration, discretionary effort, and problem-solving capability that often accompanies them.
This is one reason I sometimes think holidays reveal more about workplaces than organisations realise.
When people take time away, they often gain perspective. They notice how tired they’ve become. They realise how long it’s been since they felt fully present with family and friends. They recognise habits that have quietly become normal.
Sometimes they return refreshed and re-energised. Sometimes they return questioning whether the way they’ve been working is sustainable at all.
That distinction matters.
Because ideally, people should not need a holiday simply to recover from work.
Rest and recovery are not the opposite of performance. They are part of performance.
Elite athletes understand this instinctively. Nobody would expect a professional athlete to perform at their highest level indefinitely without recovery. Yet many workplaces still operate as though human energy is limitless.
It isn’t.
We are designed to move through cycles of effort and renewal. Which perhaps brings us back to the original question.
Maybe work-life balance was never really the goal.
Maybe the goal is creating work that contributes positively to life rather than constantly taking from it. Work that challenges people without overwhelming them. Work that stretches people without exhausting them. Work that allows people to perform well without sacrificing the very things that make performance possible in the first place.
Because ultimately, organisations need healthy people every bit as much as people need healthy organisations.
And perhaps the most useful question leaders can ask isn’t, “How do we improve work-life balance?”
Perhaps it’s this:
“Does the way people experience work leave them with enough energy to enjoy the rest of their lives?”
The answer may reveal more than any wellbeing initiative ever could.