A new report has heralded the end of the ‘work to live’ mentality.

According to a white paper by Family Matters – a national organisation committed to “blending performance, family and play” – there is clear evidence of societal change but many organisations are not yet creating a culture to support their employees.

Their white paper, Leveraging the Business of Parenting, warns that organisations need to be better at recognising the individual needs of employees and showing more empathy.

The report states that from the 1950s until the turn of the century, workplace culture and society encouraged a ‘live to work’ mentality – companies expected, and got, long hours with five day plus working weeks from their employees, who were managed in a traditional top down, command and control management model.

Organisations were inflexible, focused on leaders with a high intelligence quotient (IQ) who often signed up for a career for life, and retention of women in the workforce was low. The human cost on individuals was high.

Increasingly since the 1950s, we have seen the growth of the incidence of stress related disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression and failed relationships – since 2000 alone, the incidence of self-reported diabetes has trebled, and the introduction of a ‘no fault’ divorce in 1975 is an indicator of the times.

Employees began to talk about their lack of fulfilment, alienation from their families and disillusionment with their life long careers – the effect of the ‘live to work’ mentality on the body, mind, soul and spirit of individuals was taking its toll, and organisational cultures were also seeing the impact.

The report states: “…. as a society we are swinging towards a ‘work to live’ mentality, with our family units changing due to the increasing age of first time mothers and the decreased number of children per family, along with the expectations we have around fulfilling our shared parenting responsibilities. We now see more dual income families than throughout most of the 20th Century, with less extended family support meaning outsourcing child care has become more normal, as has a merging of ‘traditional’ male/female roles within households. High divorce rates and the rise of blended families are also impacting on co-parenting responsibilities.”

The report states that sustainable organisations need to recognise and be empathetic to individual needs.

“(Sustainable organisations) empower their employees to be outcome focused, working in activity-based environments which support flexible working through policy and technology enablers.

They understand their people are looking for careers to fulfil a life stage, rather than a life. They are developing leaders with a focus on IQ, but more importantly a focus on emotional quotient (EQ) and networking quotient (NQ), and more recently sensory quotient (SQ).

Diversity is recognised as an enabler to a better culture, and leaders understand the power of providing a culture supportive of an employee’s family and work life in developing more effective, efficient and productive workers.

That said, research conducted in 2009 shows many organisations are not yet creating a culture to support their employees.”