Volume 12 Number 4 October 2003
From rhetoric to reality. Into the
swamp of ethical practice:
implementing work-life balance
Philip Frame and Mary Hartog
Introduction
This paper reviews three organisational case
examples, two from the higher education sector
and one from local government. Our method is
comparative and relies on secondary data from
these organisations. However, our insights were
developed in part from our role as research
supervisors for students in two of these organisa-
tions. Additionally, we are informed by our
participation as employees in the University
sector, and in an organisation that is currently
implementing a DTI supported intervention
similar to those explored below. Initially we look
at the meanings ascribed to diversity manage-
ment, briefly review the history of work-life
balance and current literature which informs ‘best
practice’ as identified by the DTI, CIPD and
Employers for Work Life Balance. We then
examine each case example and seek to reveal
and problematise the inherent similarities and
contradictions within each. On this basis we
propose a model for ‘learning to practice’ and
thereby provide support for the development of a
more grounded ethics of business.
What do we mean by diversity
management in action?
Diversity can be defined as the recognition ‘that
harnessing people’s differences will create a
productive environment in which everyone feels
358
valued and where their talents are being fully
utilised’ (Kandola and Fullerton 1994: 47). As
Frame and O’Connor (2002: 291) suggest, ‘In our
post-modern society, recognising, valuing and
being able to work with variety, diversity and
multiple perspectives will be an essential pre-
requisite to survival in education and in work’.
However, they note that in practice (ibid: 281)
‘there is as yet little or no advice on how the
utilisation of diversity can be achieved’. Indeed,
we would argue that this is the principal challenge
for implementers of work-life balance.
We are concerned to reveal and critique what
we term ‘the dangers of difference’, which we
suggest can serve to exclude significant numbers
of the working population, and in particular men,
whilst at the same time serving to undermine the
quality of working life for all. Whilst Liff and
Dickens (2000) suggest that there is no inherent
difference between diversity and equal opportu-
nities management, we suggest that this is not the
case. The ‘dangers of difference’ raise our aware-
ness that there exists a real tension, if not an
ethical paradox, in adopting a diversity manage-
ment approach to integrated work-life balance, at
the expense of an ethics of practice based on
equity and justice for all the working population.
We suggest that HR practitioners need to
reappraise their strategies in practice. We propose
that a true ethics of practice for work-life balance
should be rooted in the wider approach of
communitarianism (Etzioni 1995), or what Coop-
er and Burke (2002) term ‘integration’ in ‘the new
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and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 Business Ethics: A European Review
world of work’. We therefore term our area of
interest as that of ‘integrated work-life balance’.
The central tenet of communitarianism is ‘that
we are all members of overlapping communities’
and that:
‘Neither human existence nor individual liberty
can be sustained for long outside the interdepen-
dent and overlapping communities to which we all
of us belong. Nor can any community long survive
unless its members dedicate some of their atten-
tion, energy, and resource to shared projects. The
exclusive pursuit of private interest erodes the
network of social environments on which we all
depend and is destructive to our shared experiment
in democratic self-government. For these reasons
we hold that the rights of individuals cannot long
be preserved without a communitarian perspec-
tive’. (Etzioni 1995: 253)
Notwithstanding criticism of communitarianism
as a philosophy which advocates ‘conservative’
principles in respect of the family and the
responsibilities of parents to childrearing (as a
means of protecting communities), we are sug-
gesting that this overarching framework of com-
munitarianism can help us construct an immanent
critique to the pernicious individuation, in other
words, an ‘I’m alright Jack’ syndrome, that
modern society encourages. With respect to
conservative elements of communitarianism, we
take what philosophers have developed as the
‘Neubarths’s boat’ solution (Cottingham 2003:
28). This perspective recognises that the concep-
tual framework that keeps us afloat is not one that
we have built ourselves or, indeed, one that we
can rebuild from scratch, but rather, one where
we can leave some planks in place and replace
others as required. Our commitment to the
preservation of community thus appreciates that
moral formation is not a once-for-all moulding,
but a continuing and dynamic process (ibid).
Indeed, we believe the immanent critique we call
for must, as Lovibond (2003) acknowledges, take
place through immersion in a community. Our
community of practice is that of Human Resource
Mangement and it is to this audience that our case
is primarily directed. A dynamic and evolving
communitarian perspective would thus position
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the concerns of integrated work-life balance as a
community issue, bringing it in from the ‘mar-
gins’, where it has been traditionally viewed as a
‘women’s issue’, or more recently as a ‘strategic
business issue’. By doing this, we may extend the
boundaries of our current understanding and
make it a concern for all citizens.
The historical context of work-life balance
Concern about integrated work-life balance
emerged in the 1970s, when more women (pri-
marily dual income earners) entered the work-
place. At this point it was seen as a ‘Women’s’
issue and a ‘Social’ issue. In the late 1980s human
resource practitioners presented this area of
employment policy as a potential ‘business’ issue,
and constructed the case ‘that it was good for
business as well as good for the employees’. In the
UK this case was made in an environment of a
national skills shortage and a move into a service
orientated economy. In this context, work-life
balance provided a means to promote more
effective recruitment and retention policies. A
more contemporary view, and one supported by
government policy and practice via the Depart-
ment of Trade and Industry (DTI, 2003) aims to
support the integration of work and family life for
women and men throughout their working lives.
Indeed, Cully et al. (1999) identify that organisa-
tions are adopting a number of grounds for family
friendly policies such as: happier staff (50%),
improved retention (36%) and reduced absence
(24%).
In tandem with these developments industry
began to adopt more flexible working contracts.
Atkinson (1984) identified the ‘flexible firm’ and
predicted that ‘numerical’ flexibility would give
employers the opportunity to enlarge or reduce
their workforce in response to business demands.
Whilst flexibility was also sold as having benefits
for employees, there was no doubt that the
balance of power lay with the employer. Indeed
Lewis and Dyer (2002: 304) report that ‘family
oriented policies often do not apply to this
contingent and peripheral workforce’. The
1990s have seen a proliferation of flexible
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contracts, particularly in the UK. At the same
time, there is a growing body of literature which is
critical of flexibility in general (e.g. Stanworth
2000) and flexible firms specifically (e.g. Legge
1995 and Pollert 1991).
Additionally, legal changes such as the Working
Time Regulations (1998), Employment Relations
Act (1999) and Employment Act (2002) impact on
the matter of work-life balance. The Personnel
Today Web site (2003) reveals that ‘employees in
Britain work on average the longest hours in the
EU. Limiting average working hours to 48 per
week has not had any dramatic effect. The
regulations are either ignored or have been
opted-out of, in favour of the ability to earn
premium overtime rates’.
The long hours culture of British industry is
associated with employees’ commitment to pro-
ductivity. It is often assumed that employees will
put their work commitments before their family.
Time is seen as a commodity: those who give more
of their time are more likely to be valued than
those who work fewer hours, and are perceived to
be both less productive and less committed. Such
assumptions serve to obscure the potential bene-
fits work-life balance policies may bring for both
parties. It is perhaps ironic that a refusal by some
managers to recognise this benefit creates a
culture of intensification of working time for
many employees. This is especially true of knowl-
edge workers and those in senior management,
who are among the increasing numbers of
employees that experience stress at work.
The Social Trends survey (Office for National
Statistics 1999) reported that 42% of British
workers often went home feeling exhausted. This
may be explained by what Lewis and Dyer (2000)
have referred to as ‘the elasticity’ of working ‘full
time’, in the context of a long hours work culture.
Whilst knowledge workers are more likely to have
more autonomy in the management of their
working lives, it is still the case that they tend to
work long hours because they are influenced by
cultural expectations: it is up to them to get the
job done in whatever time it takes. This would
certainly echo the experience of many full-time
lecturers in new universities and managers in local
government.
360
Worrall and Cooper (1997: 43) note that ‘there
was a significant relationship between levels of
stress-related illness reported and whether respon-
dents saw their home life as more important than
their working life’. They go on to point out that
‘32% of those who see work as much more
important than their home life have taken some
time off work for stress in the last year and this is
much higher than any other group, particularly
those who consider home more important than
work’. Thus stress would also appear to be
strongly related to employees’ allocation of
relative values to work and home.
But what is the position today within the wider
discourse of social politics and management?
From 6 April, 2003 British workers have a host
of new rights in respect of work-life balance, yet
Dillon’s report (2003: 16) reveals a tension
between the views of the government and that of
employers. Commenting on the ‘Work Life
Balance 2003 Survey’ (launched on 7 April), the
message is upbeat. Government representatives
Prime Minister Blair and Trade Secretary Hewitt
claimed that it ‘reveals an appetite for change in
the workplace that could spell the end of the nine
to five working day’. In stark contrast Ruth Lea,
head of policy at the Institute of Directors states:
‘this is a black day for business’. She argues that
the extension of family friendly policies and the
rights of parents to request flexible working,
whilst seeming progressive, will hurt business
and cause resentment in the workplace, and she
suggests, that the policies are ‘redolent of
discredited 1970s feminist ideology’. This is in
spite of 94% of employers agreeing that ‘people
work best when they can strike a healthy balance
between work and the rest of their lives’ (ibid).
Dillon’s article leads with the view that 50% of
British workers are afraid to ask for flexitime for
fear of losing out in promotion, specifically
claiming ‘that men seem more nervous’ about
exercising their rights under this new legislation.
Dillon reports ‘that whilst the survey shows an
overwhelming appreciation of the need for a
balanced working and family life among employ-
ees and employers alike y two thirds of employ-
ers surveyed said business considerations should
come first’ (ibid). We have already called for an
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 Business Ethics: A European Review
immanent critique of HR practice and as aca-
demics in this field we urge that these differences
need be dissolved if real progress is to be made.
What do we mean by work-life balance
policies?
Work-life balance policies can encompass child-
care provision such as work place nurseries, leave
of absence to care for dependants, career breaks,
post maternity leave, job sharing opportunities
and home working. Whilst these policies are often
formalised, Lewis and Dyer (2000) report that in
practice implementation was at the margins
and poorly communicated. In short, they identi-
fied a gap between the rhetoric of policy and the
reality of practice: work-life balance activities
were often regarded as a favour rather than an
entitlement, and are often an area of management
discretion.
Lewis and Dyer (2000) note that work-life
policies are more prevalent in the public sector
than in the private sector; our three case studies
hail from the former. They suggest that the
effectiveness of work-life balance in practice
depends on the extent to which they provide
workers with the autonomy and control to work
out their own work and non-work schedules and
boundaries. They argue that it is a change to
organisation culture that is crucial to support the
integration of work-life balance in practice.
They go on to cite a typology by Friedman and
Johnson (1997), which includes four stages. This
was developed in the context of a US corporate
response to work-life balance, which is seen as
a strategic business issue. Culture change is
presented as an evolutionary stage, with the
following:
1. Grass roots – where the focus is women’s
issues.
2. HR stage – where the focus is on recruitment
and selection.
3. Culture change.
4. Work redesign.
Lewis and Dyer suggest that this type of approach
will result in a win-win for all parties. But we
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would question whether this is enough, on the
following grounds:
 It is divisive to frame work-life balance solely as
a woman’s issue.
 HR must, of necessity, go beyond recruitment
and selection as the primary focus of work-life
balance activities.
 Culture change is both internal and external,
and should address prevailing norms and
attitudes, such as long hours.
 Work redesign, though important, is not an
inevitable outcome.
In examining our three case studies we have
looked at the process of implementating work-life
balance because we believe that it is by looking
behind the messy reality of this process in
practice, that we can best judge whether these
policies are effective or not.
Case 1: Modern University – London
Region
Beginning in 2002, this organisation used incen-
tive funding from the Department of Trade and
Industry to help implement a work-life balance
policy. With the services of a consultant, a two-
stage intervention was implemented. Firstly data
collection via a questionnaire to all 2,000 employ-
ees was undertaken. It was designed to get an
impression of what work-life balance might mean.
This was done in conjunction with a small number
of one to one interviews, and a series of feedback
and solutions focused workshops. The survey
response was 10% (220), which was low but
sufficient to provide a measure of opinion. The
majority of respondents (55%) were administra-
tors.
In our analysis we looked behind ‘the stories
told’ by the questions and answers. We were
struck by the data that was both revealed and
hidden in these questionnaires. When asked ‘to
calculate hours worked’, employees reported
difficulty in answering this question. This caused
us to speculate why this might be so, and we
formulated the following questions based on our
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experience and knowledge of similar organisa-
tions:
 Is it the case that people really don’t know the
number of hours worked. If so, what might
account for this?
 Do people feel confused or overwhelmed about
hours worked or unduly concerned that in
trying to estimate them they may leave them-
selves open to requests to do more?
 Do the formulae used for work programme
planning blur and deny the real time and effort
taken to do the job?
 Does the system contribute to inequity in work
distribution where work programmes may
appear weighted in favour of some, and not
others?
The same questionnaire was used for both
administrative and academic staff. We wondered
about the appropriateness of this given the
distinct differences in the way work is organised
for these two groups. Administrative staff gen-
erally work fixed hours, whereas academic staff
work variable hours according to their teaching
duties, research activities, and other commit-
ments. It may have been more informative to
use instruments that recognise these differences.
However, separate workshops were organised for
each staff group.
When asked if home life impinged on work, we
noticed that the overwhelming response (78%)
was to say that this never, rarely or occasionally
happened. We found this curious, not least
because it is not unreasonable for people to
experience a tension between the demands of
home and work occasionally. We wondered why
this was so?
 Could it be that people feel insecure in terms of
their future employment?
 Do they imagine that they will be identified as
an employee who is unable to manage domestic
demands that interfere with their work?
 Are they alone in noticing no tension in their
work-life balance?
 Do they feel that the organisation’s culture
denies their non-working life?
362
In contrast, 80% of staff said that they had
experienced feeling emotionally drained after
work, which suggests that, in practice, the work-
life relationship is experienced as one way.
Another question asked about the availability
of training opportunities, to which the majority
response was positive. Tellingly, there were
comments that people felt that they had insuffi-
cient time for training and development. This
response is important to understand what we
observed happen at the next stage of this process.
Staff were then invited to workshops, with the
intention of building the picture about what work-
life balance needs there were, and to collect data
to ascertain what type of provisions or change to
current practice might be required. We under-
stand that the turnout was extremely low; in one
case it was reported that only five attended. So
once again we speculated as to why this might be?
 Could it be that the timing of the event was
problematic?
 Could it be that staff were preoccupied with the
demands of the job, and thus felt unable to
attend this potentially developmental event?
 Were staff not interested in this issue?
 Did they feel that their work-life balance was
sufficiently integrated?
The research identified two other issues: dissatis-
faction with the consultation process within the
organisation and the perception by some staff that
their contribution was not valued.
As noted above, the DTI provided a consultant
to lead this process. We suggest the task of
outsourcing is a phenomenon of what Cooper and
Burke (2000) recognise as part of ‘the new world
of work’. The use of external consultants is a
recognised practice, with the benefit of being able
to take an independent view of the organisation.
However, the use of ‘outsiders’ also poses the
potential ‘problem’: they can never get on the
‘inside’ of an organisation’s culture. This also
raises questions about the role of the internal HR
department in leading this type of intervention,
and utilising consultancy services in a way that is
more grounded in the organisation’s reality.
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 Business Ethics: A European Review
From a critical perspective, the management of
this issue raises the question: to whom are the HR
practitioners/consultants aligned. As Alveson and
Willmott (1996: 15) point out, management is not
a neutral activity. The professionalism of HR has
been built on serving as a strategic part of
organisational management. However, given the
complexity of the messy realities we have dis-
covered, we wonder if HR practitioners need to
take a systemic-neutral position, that is, of being
aligned to everyone and no one at the same time.
Thereby, the perspectives of all stakeholders
might be heard with greater clarity, and support
the emergence of a communitarian philosophy in
practice. This position does though challenge the
prescribed new role for HR as being a strategic
business partner by suggesting some advantages
of independence.
Case 2: Modern University Department –
Midlands Region
The proposed strategy for one department in this
organisation was to take a ‘workload planning’
approach, and as with the previous example, has
been led by a consultant since 2001. What the data
does not tell us is what steps were taken to arrive
at this issue being highlighted as the key work-life
balance ‘problem’. Unlike the preceding case,
which was organisation-wide, this intervention is
focused on one academic school.
It is a highly centralised organisation, with a
matrix structure of portfolio and department
heads, including undergraduate, postgraduate
and professional, research and consultancy and
staff development. It is not clear whether staff are
allocated to one particular function, enabling
clear task boundaries to be delineated, or whether
they contribute to work across boundaries. The
motivation behind the workload planning ap-
proach is to promote a greater focus on organisa-
tional goals. A number of tensions between this
focus and the current culture are described, such
as academic freedom versus managerialism. This
suggests an impasse on ‘how we do things around
here’. A related tension reveals management
frustration and a desire to manage academic
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staff workload. Currently, management perceives
that:
Workload is determined by staff’s negotiation
skills, the ability to hold the School to ransom
and pure bloody-mindedness.
Another tension apparent in the data suggests
inequity, lack of clarity, and accountability about
what is expected of staff in terms of delivery. The
focus is on workload planning for academic staff,
with no reference to administrative staff.
The consultants identified five key issues:
 How to achieve efficiencies in the use of resources.
 The need to focus on outcomes not inputs.
 The need to focus on greater equity in the
allocation of work.
 The need for greater peer transparency in work
allocation and outcomes delivered.
 The need for alignment of personal develop-
ment: staff have to demonstrate how their deve-
lopment is contributing to the organisational
strategy and development of the school.
A number of steps were identified to move the
organisation forward including:
 Quantifying the working year, with a ‘common
currency’ for teaching/contact hours.
 Identifying roles, tasks and activities.
 Developing clear role-definitions, task descrip-
tions and role expectations.
 The development of an ‘activity’ model with
‘transparency’ review headings including teach-
ing, management and administration, research
and professional/personal development.
 The development of an annual bidding round
where roles and outcomes are set against
‘hours’ inputs and where staff have to declare
their intentions.
 The publication of allocated work by a set date.
Work redesign can be seen as the fourth and
final stage of an evolutionary process in the
development of a corporate response to work-life
balance (Lewis and Dyer 2002: 308). But issues of
performance management appear to dominate
this example. There is no evidence that the other
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stages of the evolutionary process have been
engaged with. Indeed, there would seem to be
no particular evidence to suggest it is a work-life
planning initiative, unless of course, ‘bloody
mindedness’ is implicit of a culture in which the
norm has been, staff do what they want, and in
some cases as little as possible!
The ethical stance taken in this case would
clearly be viewed as a utilitarian one, in which
workload planning is being used to effect culture
change, towards a culture where performance can
be managed. It is not clear how this contributes to
strategy for work-life balance unless we assume
that the inequities in workload referred to above
will help redress that balance.
As with the previous case, work programming
of academic staff is a common problem but we
wondered about the efficacy of the strategy
proposed. Quantification alone will not resolve
the issue of blurred boundaries, between tasks and
in hours worked. Transparency, though, may go
some way towards addressing the organisational
tensions identified above.
The consultants highlighted the importance of
commitment from the top and effective commu-
nications as essential to achieving the goal of this
intervention. If, as we suspect, the goal of perfor-
mance management is masquerading as work-life
balance, then this creates what Habermas terms a
distortion of communication in ‘ideal speech’.
Additionally and understandably, such double
speak will effectively serve to entrench the impasse
noted above.
Case 3: Local Authority – London Region
This organisation employed over 9,500 staff in
2001, the year of the case study. The gender
breakdown was 71% female and 29% male
employees. The focus of the case was career
breaks, which was one of the organisation’s
practices for enhancing work-life balance. An
HRM Master’s student on placement in the
organisation’s HR strategy unit carried out the
research. Until the government’s initiative in
March 2000, which encouraged employers to
address work-life balance, such arrangements
364
had been informal; the case examined attempts
to formalise practice. Thus a major motivator was
compliance with government policy.
However, the issue was seen as so sensitive by
managers that the researcher was forbidden from
using a questionnaire to sample the workforce and
was restricted to interviewing a small number of
employees in HR and management. To maintain
confidentiality, this study will be referred to as MB
(2001).
Interestingly, there was a ‘taken for granted’
focus on types of leave, such as extended
maternity leave which was seen to apply specifi-
cally to women. The rationale for improving
work-life balance provision was to attract and/or
hold on to staff, in response to skill shortages and
increased training costs. Additionally, ‘the overall
image of the organisation will be enhanced as an
employer of choice’ (HR line manager) and ‘the
organisation will be in the best possible position
to retain employees’ (HR officer). Significantly,
other reasons for formalising the policy, as noted
by Employers for Work Life Balance (2003), such
as lowering stress and absenteeism and increasing
productivity, were not highlighted.
Issues were raised in respect of work-life bal-
ance and
1. The job.
2. The individual.
3. The increased management task.
4. The organisation.
Though all respondents maintained they sup-
ported the idea of work-life balance, most of their
comments were negative. The comments, though,
did indicate that some thought had been given to
the issue rather than it being dismissed. In respect
of the individual, the following quotation identi-
fies commitment as an issue.
‘There seem to be concerns raised about the
benefits of a career break as to the employee’s
commitment to returning to the organisation
following a career break’ (Line manager).
In respect of the job, it was suggested that:
‘a career break may be suitable for standard
(administrative) jobs but would be different for
specialist strategic post’ (HR officer).
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 Business Ethics: A European Review
 Do we assume therefore that some jobs are
regarded as less suitable for such provision, and
if so, does it raise issues of equity?
In respect of the anticipated additional demands
on management, it was suggested that managing
work-life balance would be time consuming, for
example, ‘ensuring service delivery can be
matched with individual requests’ (HR manager).
It was also said that
‘line managers should always have the right to veto
such applications on the grounds of interest of the
service, otherwise we may have vacant posts’
(Administrative assistant, HR Strategy Unit).
 We wondered about the irony of this perceived
opposition between service delivery and career
breaks, not least because the provision of work-
life balance practices is intended to integrate
and complement the needs of both parties. We
do not see this as a case of ‘either-or’ but of
‘both-and’.
Managers would inevitably need to ensure regular
contact during such breaks: ‘keep in touch with
work, keep skills and knowledge up-to-date’ (HR
manager). At the same time, ‘it becomes increas-
ingly difficult to get whole staff groups together
for meetings’ (HR manager) y’or training’ (HR
officer). Whether current organisation arrange-
ments supported such developments was ques-
tioned, both in terms of culture and structure:
‘The Borough’s culture will need to have advanced
more significantly before such schemes become
viable in the organisation’ (Line manager).
At the same time it was felt that:
‘restructuring and pressure on budgets has left a
very flat management structure, reducing staffing
levels and smaller teams. This impedes any move-
ment towards additional work-life balance
arrangements’ (HR manager).
 Despite reductions in staff, local authorities are
frequently the largest employer in an area.
From the perspective of communitarianism,
they have a wider remit and responsibility to
the local population and to work-life balance in
order to foster community well-being.
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Perhaps the most telling management comment
was that ‘it would cause bad working relation-
ships if certain staff are offered something which
others cannot access because, for example, they
do not have children’ (Line manager).
 This reflects what may be termed a tradition-
alist view of equality management, where all
employees are treated in the same way. In
contrast, diversity management, as we have
noted above, suggests that employees should be
treated according to their differences.
 Given the Council’s wider responsibilities as
noted above, we are astonished at the political
naivety of officers who appear to be preserving
the rights of individuals at the expense of the
community.
This problem of individual autonomy matches
that identified by Roper et al. (2003: 217), when
investigating HR managers’ perception of family
friendly policies. He suggests that those who
oppose any form of work-life balance could well
present the following view:
‘In particular, the anti-feminist position empha-
sises the inequality of ‘‘making special allowances’’
for female employees in comparison with their
male colleagues. Opposition is likely to be
associated with opposition to the principle
that employers should subsidise the personal
choices made by some of their employees, or
that staff without family commitments should
not have to be treated less favourably than those
with them’.
Towards a typology for learning to
practice
We began our enquiry in the context of Schon’s
notion (1983) of the ‘swamp’, the messy reality
that all practitioners have to work with, against a
background which locates work-life balance in
terms of women’s issues, a social issue and ‘good
for business’ issue. We set out in Figure 1 a cycle
of ‘learning-to-practice’ that might facilitate
the development of an ethics of practice for
individuals and organisations, and that marries
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diversity management to the spirit of commu-
nitarian values; that is, that the interests of
individuals, organisations and the wider social
sphere are co-joined.
At the level of national policy, as argued above,
this begins with a call for an immanent critique
to dissolve the differences between the British
government policy and British employers (op. cit.)
in order to reveal that what are perceived to be
different interests are in fact inextricably co-
joined. It may well be that the Chartered Institute
of Personnel and Development can play the role
of honest broker in this exercise to facilitate
change at national, organisational and profes-
sional levels.
Learning to practice means looking behind the
technical and the rational conventions of so-called
‘best practice’ to ensure that what is being
proposed is not a distortion of fundamentally
social relations which co-join all stakeholders in
integrated work-life balance. Relatedly, learning
to practice is an educative endeavour in which HR
practitioners need to model the process of critique
to practice, promoting reflection and dialogue in
the context of professional, management and
organisation learning. Mapping our model to
disciplines for organisational learning (Senge et al.
1994) may facilitate this process. These disciplines
promote ‘shared vision’, ‘mental models’ (the
ability to see different perspectives), ‘personal

Commit to diversity
management -
communitarianism

Monitoring and evaluation Evaluating current culture

for diversity in practice both internal and external

Individual and Identifying forces for and

organisation learning and against integrated work -
reflection life balance

Co-operative consultation
and communicative action

Figure 1. The Learning-to-Practice Cycle.

366 r Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2003

 Business Ethics: A European Review
mastery’ (personal development), ‘team learning’,
and ‘systems thinking’ (a systemic perspective that
helps see the picture, linking the parts to the
whole).
Conclusion
This paper has reviewed approaches to work-life
balance as an example of diversity management
and examined the implementation process in three
organisational case examples. Firstly, diversity
management was explored as the foundation for
developing integrated work-life balance that is
both inclusive and not gender specific, thus
avoiding what we termed ‘the dangers of differ-
ence’. The argument was then positioned within a
communitarian perspective, to extend the concept
of work-life balance from being seen primarily as
a women’s issue or, as an issue internal to business
and organisations.
We then reviewed the historical context for
work-life balance and noted the link with the
emergence of the flexible firm and the need for an
immanent critique to dissolve the perceived
differences between the Government and employ-
ers.
Having critiqued our three case examples, we
developed a tentative model of a typology for
learning to practice, which involved six stages that
marries diversity management to the spirit of
communitarian values.
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