On most weekdays, the debate around work–life balance doesn’t play out in HR policies or leadership town halls. It plays out quietly—when a meeting runs past dinner time, when a family event clashes with a deadline, or when someone shuts their laptop feeling guilty for doing so. In these moments, the question isn’t theoretical. It’s deeply personal.
Is balance something employees must learn to manage better, or is it something leaders fail to enable? The truth, as most lived experiences suggest, sits somewhere in between. Work–life balance today is shaped less by slogans and more by daily decisions—by how individuals prioritise, and by the signals organisations send about what truly matters.
Pankaj Lochan, CHRO, Navin Fluorine
The phrase ‘work–life balance’ itself is flawed because it assumes work and life are opposing forces. Work is an integral part of life—it sustains families, enables choices and shapes identity. Treating it as something to constantly escape from creates a false conflict.
Rather than framing balance as a tug-of-war, I place responsibility on individual judgment. I break life into three practical buckets: necessity, comfort and luxury—a 10–20–70 framework. Necessities, such as a family illness or critical personal obligation, must always take precedence, even if work suffers. Comfort lies in the grey zone—events that can be negotiated. Luxury, which forms the bulk of everyday wants, is where trade-offs are easiest.
The danger lies at the extremes. When employees treat all personal choices as non-negotiable rights, accountability erodes. When leaders deny even genuine necessities, trust collapses and long-term damage follows. Balance is not about equal hours—it’s about discerning what truly matters, when.
Calling every conflict a leadership failure oversimplifies reality. Balance is achieved when individuals exercise maturity, and leaders allow space for what is genuinely non-negotiable.
Takeaway: Work isn’t separate from life—balance comes from mature judgment about what truly matters, not from treating work as the enemy.
Nita Nambiar, chief people officer, Hexaware Technologies
I question whether balance, as commonly imagined, is even achievable. In a world of hybrid work, global teams and constantly shifting roles, the idea of neatly dividing work and life into fixed time slots is unrealistic—and often frustrating.
The real skill is prioritisation, not balance. Different phases of life demand different trade-offs, and expecting constant equilibrium sets people up for guilt rather than clarity. Employees must learn to make conscious choices, set boundaries and accept that not everything can be equally prioritised all the time.
But this responsibility cannot exist in isolation. Leaders play a critical role in ensuring that prioritisation is respected in practice—not just spoken about. When organisations value outcomes over visibility, and flexibility over performative presence, employees feel safer making those choices honestly.
Balance is in motion rather than in measurement. It’s not something leaders ‘provide’ or employees ‘claim,’ but something continuously negotiated through expectations, trust and clarity.
Takeaway: Balance is a myth—prioritisation is the reality, and it requires both employee clarity and leadership trust to work effectively.