Why “blurring” work and life is a disaster – and why this Economist video is wrong!

I sat down to watch a new Economist Intelligence Unit video the other day on the “Future of Work”. It is just the latest of such videos that are designed to present an insight into how work is changing and how it will change in coming years. 

It is not that this video is uniquely bad but just that it is the latest film to push out the same tired cliches and poorly considered mantras that are emerging around the “future work agenda”. Some of the content is actually fine, in the sense of accurate but it is the same old ideas we have been hearing for several years – offices are no longer what they were, people are changing where they work and technology will change things more in the future. Wow! 

We have known this for about 20 years now, so it’s just nothing new. But aside from its rather jaded messages there are two “insights” that are supposed to challenge our thinking and both are wholly incorrect. The first such insight around work/life I will cover here – and I will cover the second insight in my next next blog. 

On the work/life side, one chap talks about a new (awful) term “Bleisure” which he says is the new term for the blurring of work and life. Firstly this is term I have never heard, nor has anyone I have asked in the future work field and everyone (on hearing it for the first time) hates the term. But that aside, the idea that confusing work with the rest of your life is a good thing which is what we are told in the video, is not only without any evidence but as deeply unhealthy and dangerous for us as human beings – and for our society. 

Throughout our time on earth humans have always distinguished between work and play. each feeds the other and each is vitally important. The idea that in the new world of portable work this separation would vanish and that we should all be thrilled, is a powerful and disturbing notion that must be challenged. It is childish to think that because we can work anywhere, anytime that therefore we should so. Why should the new liberation of work through technology means we work evenings, weekends and on hollday? Why is that considered a benefit and not a curse? 

We are becoming (as covered in my new book being previewed in hardback in New York on 13 March) addicted to work because it is so easy to work now. But from my 30 year experience in being able to work in this fleixible way, not being clear about where work ends and the rest of your life begins is like sleepwalking into a working week that never fully stops. This video evangelises this myth and it is a shame to see Microsoft as the sponsor because I know many senior managers there would find that part of the message in this video as distasteful as I do.