"Life has become analogous to work. Instead of developing a lifestyle, our everyday efforts and energy go into choosing a work-style: ‘a way of working and a way of being at work’, as one British professional coaching agency describes it."
- Extract from Liquid Life, Convergence Culture, and Media Work by Mark Deuze, Indiana University.
The work/life debate is not a new one. But the ever increasing development of technology encourages a blur between home-life and work-life more than ever before. This is what those at homecookedtheory.com refer to as 'presence bleed'. There is a lot of opinion out there about how presence bleed negatively effects workers. There are numerous websites devoted to the issue with helpful articles on how to achieve a work/life balance that works for you.
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But can the work/home blur be positive? It can if you work for one of the companies on CNNMoney's 100 Best Companies to Work For. Take software giant SAS for example, workers at SAS have the opportunity to make presence bleed work in their favor by taking advantage of the company's on-site healthcare, beauty salons, recreation facilities and child-minding services. Similarly Zappos.com boast a work environment that is so happy, they sing about it. No really, they have their own song.
The "Zappos Family" provide free lunches and workers can also make use of a life coach. I know another organisation that has a perky song about being a 'family' but as this cult organisation is in no way related to the current company or this post so I will move on.
Dreamworks Animation was ranked number 10 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For list. Perks include free meals, film screenings, games room and yoga classes but what seems to be more attractive to employees is the chance to pitch your ideas to the big wigs. The company even provides classes on how to do just that.
With perks like that, employees of these companies are some of the happiest in the world. That sounds like presence bleed at it's best to me.
More about presence bleed:
I'm not so sure i completely agree with you here Jessica. I get where you're coming from when you say that the employees from such companies must be extremely happy with all of those added extras - but is this really just a very clever, hidden strategy to expand the presence bleed? Employees are still under the influence of their company/workplace when they are getting a hair cut or going to the movies - things that should never be associated with the workplace. But maybe that view just comes from my pessimistic attitudes towards presence bleed.
ReplyDeleteWOW the employees from the companies you mention would definitely be a lot happier than those who don't receive such perks.
ReplyDeleteI dont think we can get away from the expanding presence bleed. I know that I would rather get these added extras than nothing at all.