Certainly some of the biggest buzz to come out of the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM) annual conference in New Orleans last month was former GE CEO Jack Welch's proclamation that "There's no such thing as work-life balance."

Welch's remark has stirred a flurry of comments, including a point of disagreement from Welch's wife Suzy via Twitter, which Lauren Young pointed out on BusinessWeek.com.

While the conversation seems now to have morphed into renewed attempts to define work-life balance – which is not a bad thing since it keeps it in the forefront of discussions of team building in the workplace – I think it important to go back to Welch's original statement to address its validity.

Here's a bottom-line guy (see my post citing Bob Sutton's rebuke of Welch's 10% layoff rule) who fails to understand not only that work-life balance exists and is achievable, but that it contributes mightily to the bottom line of organizations that place a premium on the employee engagement practices that address this aim.

We have described in our best practice reports on our Top Small Workplace winners in 2007 and 2008 – covering 30 firms in total – why these enterprises include work-life balance among their core values, how they help their workers achieve a balance, and the business benefits that come as a result.  Some of these include:

• Decreased absenteeism
• Decreased turnover
• Greater employee satisfaction (measured by annual employee opinion or 360-degree feedback surveys)
• Improved customer service
• Longer average employee tenure (typically far above industry average)
• Enduring businesses that can weather downturns (the 2008 winners, for example, have been in business an average of 42 years)
• And most telling, I think: Steady, strong annual revenue growth that exceeds industry averages – average annual revenue growth of the 2008 winners over a three-year period is 23%

And while some of these companies make work-life balance more of a priority in terms of their business models and recruiting/retention efforts – 2007 winners Point B and Guerra DeBerry Coody come to mind – the leadership at all 30 of them retain a focus on it as a means to attract and develop like-minded individuals as part of their long-term growth and sustainability.

Needless to say, I think Welch is flat-out wrong on work-life balance.  It does exist, employees can and do find it, and it does matter to businesses that are playing the long game because they can see returns from their investment in it in the areas I mentioned above.

If you'd like to read more about the 30 companies I'm talking about, go here for the 2007 winners and here for the 2008 winners.

What's your take on this?

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