We all had to quietly nod in agreement in those meetings and then literally everyone else openly talked about work life balance regularly. Being on the hiring team in that company quite, quite often the phrase comes up in interviews. Even our head of HR, thankfully, wouldn’t regurgitate the weird language around that to potential hires asking about work life balance.

Ultimately, executives are just humans. Humans have flaws and sometimes those flaws materialize in pedantic phraseology. People hope their execs are these perfect all-knowing individuals and that’s just never the case. It’s a combination of _some_ amount of competency and a whole lot of luck that put them there in all cases.

I would understand if she was running a huge charity; she would feel that interrupting family time is a sacrifice she makes to improve the world. But, Walmart is just a mechanism to extract value from customers.

My interpretation: The "Chief People Officer" at Walmart doesn't want to be responsible for making sure that the people who work at Walmart have a good work life balance.

Does anyone know if Walmart pays more than its competitors?

So, not really focused on family then

Puff piece

Neither works, hence the huge draw of working from home.

Did the mantra change again? Wasn't it called 'hustle culture' previously?

> For some, the term can mean not working nights, ... While this divide may give you a sense of happiness and fulfillment, it isn’t always realistic

Actually, it can be anything from 'mandatory' to 'completely impossible' depending upon who sets the limits.

> “I’ve never believed in the term work-life balance,” says Morris, ... “I call it work-life integration."

I admire the rich people for their ability to cook up intelligent-sounding alternative terms on a dime! However, based on the elaboration of the concept, 'work-life disintegration' sounds more appropriate.

> When Morris is visiting family, for example, her main focus is on them. But if there’s something at work that needs her attention, she won’t wait until she’s back in the office to do so.

What an inspirational example! I will remember that for the day when my compensation also justifies such dedication.

> Morris’ insight comes as young professionals are demanding more out of work, ... Along with an inadequate salary and burnout, lack of work-life balance is one of the top reasons why Gen Zers would quit a job

Hmm. Sounds more like Morris' demands vs Gen Zers insights. I mean, how can someone think about jumping back into work at midnight when they are constantly worried about paying their rents and transportation costs?

> The pursuit of work-life balance can also cause mental distress

As opposed to?

Option A: Working unpaid/unlimited extra time

Option B: Being on call 24x7

Option C: Being on text with boss during your child's football match

Option D: Any arbitrary combination of the above

> We hear these things from others, [like] trust in the process [and] balance is so important, we need more balance, it’s the ultimate goal

> It ends up being very frustrating and can lead to anxiety, because we’re constantly feeling like we’re not in balance.

So you become distressed by aspiring to be peaceful and satisfied? Is that like being sad because you want to be happy?

Forgive me for being cynical. It's completely fair for well paid (often exorbitantly) executives to have standards for their responsibilities and dedication. But when you project the same onto young employees, some thought must be given about their spare cognitive and emotional capacity after their struggles to make two ends meet. When leaders start recommending 50 year mortgages, your first priority must be to evaluate the compensation that these employees are paid, as a percentage of the value that they generate, instead of peddling idealistic, if not inhuman standards using language of subtle guilt tripping. A bit of sensitivity will take you a long way in these troubled times.