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The competition to be on time with products, the remote area Microsoft is located in, and the fact that so many working professionals without families live in the Seattle area all make work-life balance difficult to achieve for many employees of Microsoft who have families. The continued exodus of key members of the MSN Search team to Google illustrates how the work-life balance is more fiction than fact according to Greene (2005). His article from Business Week paints a very accurate picture of the Microsoft culture and the challenges it faces in terms of continuing its momentum forward. Paradoxically Microsoft's competitive challenges are becoming so significant with open source software challenging their operating systems business and he challenges of competing with Google they could use a healthy dose of work-life balance giving them a boost to ingenuity and development. Only through giving employees their freedom in how they define their schedules and how they complete tasks will Microsoft be able to accomplish this competitive goal according to Pratt (2006). Pratt's article defines many of the strategies companies are relying on to provide their employees the flexibility and freedom to achieve work-life balance, and the resulting increases...
Many companies struggle with work-life balance as it cannot be quantified and measured. The ROI of work-life balance may very well be in attracting and retaining professionals in the prime of their careers when they also typically have children at home or elderly parents to take care of.
In terms of my own work-life balance I specifically chose the company I work for specifically for the freedom they give me to work at home when I need to, and attend my children's events when I need to be there. The company I work for is the not highest salary in the industry, yet they do give me time off when I need to take care of my immediate and extended family. That freedom is priceless, and worth the slightly lower salary earned here.
References
Greene (2005) - Troubling Exits at Microsoft. Business Week Online. September 26, 2005. Accessed from the Internet on January 17, 2007 from location: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952001.htm
Pratt (2006) - Work/Life Balance: What's It Worth? ComputerWorld Magazine. Accessed from the Internet on January 17, 2007 from location: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=270119
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