Work/life balance is a close cousin to occupational health and safety (OHS), particularly health. It is often the gateway people use to reduce occupational health risks such as stress and other psychosocial issues. Moving to self-employment can be a successful strategy but it is not as easy as simply relocating one’s individual workplace or teleworking, the expected control on work hours may not eventuate and it may be very difficult to maintain a livable wage. In The Saturday Age on April 26 2014 (not locatable on-line), Dr Natalie Skinner of the Australian Centre for Work + Life, provided a useful perspective.
Skinner writes that her annual surveys over the last six years have indicated that:
“self-employment is neither better nor worse for work-life conflict than being an employee.”
Skinner acknowledges that this seems odd because there has been so much debate about the win-win of workplace flexibility.
Having been a freelance writer and an employee, full-time employment provides the necessary living wage but one does miss the flexibility of freelancing. That is why before considering self-employment it is vital to establish a ledger where the pros and cons are listed prior to making the decision. My experience would include the following positives and negatives:
- increased sense of community – professional loneliness
- direct control of income and costs – earning capacity linked more directly to economic fluctuations
- more time with kids – less time for work and income
- control the pace of one’s life – until the next deadline
- personal customer service – struggle to do so on limited resources
- time to smell the roses – sleepless nights over unpaid bills or late invoices
These are just some of my considerations and experiences over the last 15 years or so. Work/life balance is a goal that is never achieved because it is a continuing process of give and take and flexibility in more elements than just work. It may require freelancing for a while and salaried employment for a time, home office and city office. It may involve a mix of the two extremes but this can easily become working two jobs and could result in less flexibility than one ever expected. The pathway of work/life balance and self-employment has many insidious traps.
More of Dr Skinner’s work can be found on-line at the research page of the Centre for Work + Life.
