Work-Life Balance Can Americans Learn a Lesson from European Nations

Work-Life Balance Can Americans Learn a Lesson from European Nations A woman works with analytics at a PR firm. Shes up and out the door at 6am and doesnt return home until 9pm. On weekends, youll find her nose stuck in her laptop doing more work. A man holds a senior-level communications position at a Fortune 500 company. He comes in at 5am and often doesnt leave his office until well into the evening. Every other week hes traveling out of the country on geschftliches miteinander.Both of these people are married with children and have brought aleidher addition to their home life workaholism.Unfortunately, workaholism is a very common thing in our nation. Ive met countless men and women like the ones above (who are real, by the way) who are workaholicsaddicted to work. And growing up in this society, I assumed it was the norm. Everyone around the world behaved like this, correct? Most people belie ved in working hard to pursue your goals or working harder than the next guy to become successful, right? Wrong.I recently had lunch with a London associate and the topic of work-life differences in the U.S. and European countries came up. She said, after living in the U.S. for the past few years, she sees just how different Americans work styles are. We do elend truly take breaks. In European nations, when workers go on holiday, they really go on holidayno answering work emails, doing work on their laptops, or making business calls. She even said no colleague or manager would even think of sending an employee a late-night text (post office hours) relating to work, yet it happens to her all the time in America.This was interesting to me and prompted me to research the work culture differences between the U.S. and Europe. Heres what I foundThe U.S. has some of the longest working hours in the developed world, yet American workers have some of the shortest paid vacation leaveThe avera ge British employee works 150 hours fewer than a U.S. workerThe US is the only developed country that has no legal, contractual or collective requirement to provide any minimum amount of annual leaveThe UK (and other countries) adhere to a European working time directive, which requires at least four weeks of paid annual leave for every employeeA DIT research report found that 1 in 6 U.S. employees now work more than 60 hours a weekI also came across an interesting article in my research where the author breaks down four distinct workaholic working styles1. Bulimic workaholic feels the job must be done perfectly or not at all. Bulimic workaholics often cant get started on projects, and then scramble to complete it by deadline, often frantically working to the point of exhaustionwith sloppy results.2. Relentless workaholic takes on more work than can possibly be done. In an attempt to juggle too many balls, they often work too fast or are too busy for careful, thorough results.3. Att ention-deficit workaholic starts with fury, but fails to finish projectsoften because the person loses interest for another project. They often savor the brainstorming aspects but get easily bored with the necessary details or follow-through. 4. Savoring workaholic slow, methodical, and overly scrupulous. They often have trouble letting go of projects and dont work well with others. These are often consummate perfectionists, frequently missing deadlines because its not perfect.Although I certainly dont classify myself as a workaholic, I have a few of the characteristics listed above and have had to pull myself away from my work on more than one occasion to actually live.Why are Americans so consumed with work? The conversation with my associate was so intriguing because hearing how the way of life is in other countries led me to question Do we have it all wrong here in America?Many Americans spend more time working than doing anything else. Yet, a good majority of Americans are also lonely, anti-social or do not have the proper skills to interact in a social setting. Were so wrapped up in our electronic devices that we dont know how to have or even value physical, face-to-face communication anymore. Kids are raising themselves as both parents work and sometimes still dont experience family time on the weekends because 1) parents are still working or 2) parents are too tired.I wonder what would happen if we adopted some of the strategies of the work cultures in other countries? What would happen if we really left our work in the office? If we chose not to respond to business emails after a certain hour, or left our laptops and work cells at home when on vacation?Could it be that wed finally find a solution to that work-life balance that so many Americans are looking for? What do you think, Recruiter.com readers?