"Employees should keep their private lives and personal activities as separate as possible from the workplace."
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
Whether individuals should maintain a clear demarcation between their personal lives and corporate life is an interesting conversation. On one hand, promoters will suggest that personal lives involve unique set of activities and interactions with a family, friends relatives etc which is different from corporate interactions in content and context. On the other hand, detractors will suggest that in today's fast paced life, ensuring that day to day interactions serve multiple purposes i.e. nourishment of private and corporate role of a human would be most effective in achieving success. In my view, maintaining the distinction between private and workplace activities and interaction is very important
First, the activities involved as part of personal life is quite different from interactions involved in workplace. Both the types of interactions demand exclusivity so that the objectives of the interactions are not diluted. For example, as part of one's personal life interaction, one interacts with one's parents, spouse, siblings , children , friends and a whole bunch of other individuals. And these interactions need time. In the 24 hour clock, a working professional spends around 10 hours to support work related activities. Without questioning the importance of that , I , however, think that outside of that slot, there are individuals who need your time too. So, in order to maintain exclusivity and ensure that they get your complete attention, it is important that you totally and only engage with them in the way they would like you to. Now, if you were to mix the work place and personal activities, the already low percentage of time that you can allocate for interaction with your near and dear ones is further diminished. And I think that is detrimental to personal relationships. Every relationship needs exclusive time.
Secondly, I think the very fact that one changes gears from moving into a corporate mode into a personal mode benefits the individual themselves. Studies have shown that an individual who lead a one track life are far less productive that individuals who involve in multiple things. For example, consider 2 individuals - One who does not establish a clear distinction between work and personal life and another individual who clearly demarcates the 2 aspects of life. The later through his varied interactions will gain different perspectives from interactions through a varied set of individuals. So, he or she would be more excited to get back from the personal life mode into the work life mode and vice-versa. Whereas, a person who does not establish the difference will find that the majority of his or her day is marked by monotonous work related discussions and will find it less exciting to get back to work the next day.
In sum, to maintain the right balance in life, I think that keeping the two aspects of life - personal & work - as separate as possible helps in ensuring that better relationships and productivity. Like outlined above, relationship demand exclusivity and making the thin line between personal and work can be detrimental to an individual's over-all well being in multiple ways.
Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.
Whether individuals should maintain a clear demarcation between their personal lives and corporate life is an interesting conversation. On one hand, promoters will suggest that personal lives involve unique set of activities and interactions with a family, friends relatives etc which is different from corporate interactions in content and context. On the other hand, detractors will suggest that in today's fast paced life, ensuring that day to day interactions serve multiple purposes i.e. nourishment of private and corporate role of a human would be most effective in achieving success. In my view, maintaining the distinction between private and workplace activities and interaction is very important
First, the activities involved as part of personal life is quite different from interactions involved in workplace. Both the types of interactions demand exclusivity so that the objectives of the interactions are not diluted. For example, as part of one's personal life interaction, one interacts with one's parents, spouse, siblings , children , friends and a whole bunch of other individuals. And these interactions need time. In the 24 hour clock, a working professional spends around 10 hours to support work related activities. Without questioning the importance of that , I , however, think that outside of that slot, there are individuals who need your time too. So, in order to maintain exclusivity and ensure that they get your complete attention, it is important that you totally and only engage with them in the way they would like you to. Now, if you were to mix the work place and personal activities, the already low percentage of time that you can allocate for interaction with your near and dear ones is further diminished. And I think that is detrimental to personal relationships. Every relationship needs exclusive time.
Secondly, I think the very fact that one changes gears from moving into a corporate mode into a personal mode benefits the individual themselves. Studies have shown that an individual who lead a one track life are far less productive that individuals who involve in multiple things. For example, consider 2 individuals - One who does not establish a clear distinction between work and personal life and another individual who clearly demarcates the 2 aspects of life. The later through his varied interactions will gain different perspectives from interactions through a varied set of individuals. So, he or she would be more excited to get back from the personal life mode into the work life mode and vice-versa. Whereas, a person who does not establish the difference will find that the majority of his or her day is marked by monotonous work related discussions and will find it less exciting to get back to work the next day.
In sum, to maintain the right balance in life, I think that keeping the two aspects of life - personal & work - as separate as possible helps in ensuring that better relationships and productivity. Like outlined above, relationship demand exclusivity and making the thin line between personal and work can be detrimental to an individual's over-all well being in multiple ways.
@Deb
