Jennifer Garner got some golf claps recently when she mentioned how, at a press junket for her most recent film, every reporter asked about balancing work and family, while her husband, Ben Affleck, was not asked the same question by even a single news outlet as he simultaneously promoted his latest movie.
(The smattering of applause might have been a standing ovation if anyone were really worried that two A-list, millionaire movie stars married to each other with the means to have round-the-clock help should they choose to work were in need of some sympathy.)
However, close your eyes and throw a rock (somewhere outside of Hollywood) and chances are you’ll hit someone who works for a company for which work-life balance is an urban legend. For most worker bees, it simply doesn’t exist. That’s why working families — and working moms in particular — struggle so much to stay employed and engaged in their careers while also being present in a meaningful way with their spouses and kids.
In a 24/7 smartphone world, the urge to work late and on weekends and respond to texts and emails at all hours can be hard to resist for fear of falling behind or missing out, particularly if a younger or single co-worker is nipping at your heels. It can be a viscous cycle that ultimately discourages those with career and family ambitions from wholeheartedly pursuing both.
Then you read about someone like Kevin Cleary and it’s as if the actual Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus have knocked on your door with a bottle of Cabernet to let you toast with them to the fact that, indeed, they are real. Cleary is the CEO of Clif Bar and Company, which produces energy bars. He was recently profiled by ABC News, although not because he’s taken the company through tough times to some unprecedented growth (although maybe he has), but because he is blazing a trail for a healthy work-life balance.
Cleary is the dad to three young sons, and in an effort to actually father them in a purposeful and robust way, he is walking the walk and doing his best to ensure his employees who chose to do the same are able to. For starters, employees are paid to exercise each week for two and a half hours in an on-site, company-owned gym complete with a climbing wall. Cleary himself runs 20 miles a week, and when he does it on the clock, he makes sure to “walk back through the company” — sweat and all — because “it’s a good example for me to set for people at the company.”
He doesn’t send out emails at night or on the weekend because “I don’t want to set the expectation that people should be working at 7 or 8 at night. I get home at 6:30. I put the phone in my home office. I leave it there, then I’m just dedicated to my kids. Once a week, I cut out of work early and I’m coaching my twins — they are 6 — their soccer team, and I coach their baseball team. It’s important for people to see me doing that and see it’s okay,” he told ABC News.
Maybe at first blush the idea of working for a company where the person in charge encourages a healthy lifestyle doesn’t seem earth-shattering, but check with the person whom you just hit with a rock (and be sure to apologize, by the way) and chances are, they would love to be employed somewhere in which the expectation isn’t that you’ll be clocked in for a single moment after you’ve already clocked out. And to be paid to exercise? That’s stuff you’d think only models and celebrities get to do. Maybe Clif Bar and Company could be making even more money if the atmosphere at work were a more cut-throat one, or maybe they realized that while operating in the black is necessary, at a certain point, money just isn’t everything.
That it’s a male CEO leading the way is a nice change, too. Speaking to Jennifer Garner’s point (although with the world’s smallest violin playing in the background), it’s nice that there’s good news about what a company is trying to do for families. Also, that it is a man leading the charge in what is often assumed as being something mostly important to women, and he’s being asked how and why he does it all. The only thing that would be better would be if more businesses see the benefit in following Cleary’s lead and creating an environment that encourages productivity, good health, and a life outside of the cubicle — for men and women.
Photo courtesy of ABC News
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