I once worked for a large company with a very laidback culture. We were allowed to wear essentially whatever we wanted to work, the workday started a bit later than most, and everyone came off as more relaxed than in most other companies. Initially I thought that this culture offered a great change from my prior employer (suits everyday, very rigid structure, etc.), but I soon came to realize that there is a big price for a culture that is this laidback.

In my two years there, I don’t think one meeting started on time – the average was a solid 10 to 30 minutes late. If I needed something from another department, I would sometimes have to ask for it a few times before I got it. And ineffective employees were allowed to remain ineffective for much longer than they should have been as long as conflict was avoided and the culture was preserved.

Ultimately, I came to realize that cultures that are too relaxed are easily taken advantage of by certain employees and these employees are a drag on the overall organization. They also set the tone for the whole organization and many initially effective employees adjust their work style to be less effective as there is no penalty for doing so. Interestingly, most of the outsider that I tried to explain this downside to still remained jealous of the “great” culture of my office – I think it is something that you have to experience for yourself before you can fully appreciate the drawbacks.

Prior to my employment at Tuck, I worked for IBM in Burlington.

IBM initiated an early retirement buyout program to reduce headcount. The best employees, who had the most institutional knowledge and where highly employable at other companies, were the first ones to take the buyout and leave. This may have looked like a smart move from an accounting point of view, replacing the older/higher paid employees with new college graduates however in reality, it cost the company more in trying to replace the institutional knowledge that walked out the door.

After several rounds of buyouts and other weeding out methods, most of the deadwood had been pruned.

IBM put into place a system where every first line manager HAD to rank his employees in order and identify the one who would be let go if there were to be a layoff. After that the employees were ranked according to a bell curve:

    1.  Performance exceeds expectations (very small percentage)
    2.  Performance meets expectations (hopefully the majority)
    3.  Improvement is needed in performance - this triggered a raft of procedures to set milestones for improving performance.

Another part of the performance evaluation process was a 360 review. You were asked to make comments about your co-workers. The source of the comments would be known to the managers but not the other employee. So it was in your best interest as you are scrambling up the bell curve to say things that cast your co-workers in bad light.

The whole thing pitted a group of people who were working well together as a team, against each other. I don't see how that could have improved the performance of the team or the company.

My horror story of work life balance took place right after college at bulge bracket investment bank in NYC. My first day after training went from 7 am until 2 am followed by another 6 am morning. This trend continued to the point where I could barely remember my address and tried to use my access card to get into my apartment. I hit rock bottom in week three when I was so tired I was forgetting the simplest of details including what the preferred font for a certain document was. When I asked my millionth question the senior associate cracked, turned around and threw a book at me. I accepted this culture and did nothing. This path continued for another month until I finally mentioned it to a senior managing director who clued me in that this wasn’t ok, and was in fact far from within the permissible culture. I was transferred off the team that week and later learned that they had gone through 7 junior people in the two years before me and had a similar trend after me. Fortunately, work life balance has been improving ever since.

My past job was a work hard, play hard place.

The work involved visiting breathtaking pieces of property and getting to know the eclectic landowners: eating in diners with them, riding in the back of their 1948 Jeep trucks, hearing their stories of mandatory coastal patrol and blackouts from the Depression, and sometimes even serving in a near-counseling role to their estranged stepchildren. The work also involved complex multi-party negotiations. Every day brought a new twist, turn, and challenge.

The play involved frequent staff “theme lunches”: Halloween with scary food where someone brought in a grape nuts and tootsie roll concoction in a litter box; after work drinks in the “Plum Blossom Lounge”, otherwise known as my office, which overlooked a cacophony of pink blooms every spring. Every day promised a new laugh or office joke – the cumulative effect was a work environment that I looked forward to arriving at every day.

I think the ideal job environment is one like this that integrates both work and play.

My firm underwent a major cultural shift when a new management team took over. The change led to a phenomenal improvement in the quality of both my work and my life. Simple things like relaxing the dress code and opening the officer-only cafeteria to the entire staff were meaningful signals. We also eliminated ineffective meetings and other bureaucracy (memos which nobody read, etc.). The culture took on a results-oriented and entrepreneurial feeling with the new managers modeling through their own behavior. They were accessible, friendly and supportive—encouraging collaboration and work/life balance while establishing challenging benchmarks for success.

As a junior employee, I never interacted with the previous managers. There had been a very palpable hierarchy with negligible intermingling. The improvement in culture became very obvious to me one morning several months after the new managers arrived. While walking to work, I spotted one of them driving by. I hailed him down like a taxi and hitched a ride. In the past, this would have been a “CLM” (career limiting move!), but the new manager and I used the time to get caught up on work issues and laughed it off when I offered him a tip at our destination.

Officers dancing to Britney Spears. Talent shows featuring beat-box. Watching the “Friends” finale in a conference room. All this to show we meant it when we said life outside of work mattered.

The strongest indicator of how much a company truly integrates work-life balance, however, is when life begins to grossly outweigh the work. When a technician with less than one year of service to the company was diagnosed with leukemia, we stepped up. Sure, he had some sick and vacation time he could use, but that amount totaled three days, barely making a dent in the six-month recovery time required. My company not only offered to advance four weeks of sick and vacation time, we also pushed out his “active” status for as long as possible, allowing him to maximize benefits coverage. We also told him his job would be here when he returned – guaranteed.

I had the distinct honor of sharing with him and his family how our company would provide. They were exceedingly grateful, saying repeatedly how astounded they were at the measures a company would take for just one employee. For this technician, our commitment to work-life balance offered hope and security when it mattered most.

I’m happy to report that he’s back at work today, about to enjoy another talent show that probably won’t showcase Britney this time around.

I worked at a National Magazine for four years. Journalism is a cutthroat field, but at NM there was a culture of collegiality and encouragement. It wasnąt perfect: Starting salaries were meager, hiring practices a bit random, and getting career guidance required major initiative. But the editors and senior writers were great about helping young writers who asked, and the junior writing staff was on excellent terms. Instead of stealing stories and undercutting other peopleąs ideas, we brainstormed together and provided the sort of impromptu therapy sessions that every writer needs.

I watched several women go on maternity leave, decide to take a more extended break, then return a year or two later with no apparent detrimental effect. We worked long hours, but senior staff often worked from home, and several even lived in far-flung cities, only coming to the office to close big stories. With relaxed hours and no one keeping tabs on us, we could run errands or go to the gym at lunch, making up the time later in the day. As long as our work was good, it didnąt matter where or how we got it done! It was a relaxed and stimulating environment; one I miss very much.

My wife has a doctor’s appointment this morning and my son’s got a big game this afternoon. My solution - to work from 11-3, no questions asked.

My job environment is truly unique - I choose my hours, and oh yeah, my salary too. You see, here, work is not my life, it’s a part of my life.

How does it work? Well, all information here is public, from hours to salaries (yes, even my boss’!). Of course we have required meetings, but otherwise we’re in charge of our time. And part of those salaries that we choose for ourselves depends on our ratings in anonymous peer-evaluations. These evaluations keep us on our toes, so while we control our lives, we’re quite accountable for our productivity.

The best part is our company affords us this flexibility and we’re actually much more productive than our competitors! It’s simple - we’re hard-working, intelligent people that are literally earning our right to stay at an organization this employee friendly. If I slack off, there are plenty of qualified people lining up to work in this extraordinary environment.

I’d explain more, but I have to run or my wife will be late!

One of the worst places I have worked at in terms of work/life balance was in Asia at a company where work was synonymous with life. The director of my division came into the office at around 7am and never left before 9pm. Often he leaves much later. The rest of the department, and pretty much the entire office, followed this example. Nearly everyone ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the office in the cafeteria but not a single person felt this was out of the ordinary. They all worked to at least 9pm and often until 11pm or later. No one had time for hobbies or had the energy to engage in much of anything. “Sleeping” was the number one cited activity one like to engage in outside of work. The final straw came when I was preparing to go on a weekend long hike during a long weekend holiday. After I was granted permission to leave early at 6pm, I walked past rows and rows of people in their cubicles. Not one person had any plans for the weekend holiday and not one person dared to leave at the regular time. I decided right then and there that this company is not for me.

Before Tuck, I worked in an investment bank. The culture I experienced at first was tough, with face time heavily implemented. I once asked for my birthday week-end off, feeling guilty as hell for asking and getting grief when I got back.

Then, the head of the desk changed. He instigated the best culture I have experienced so far. He let every team member take responsibility for their work. He didn’t ask anything from us except that the work gets done well. He empowered each one of us to work out our own schedule.

This environment allowed me to have a flexible work-life balance. I could schedule my time with my family, gym, lunch, coffee breaks, involvement in company-wide charitable initiatives, as well as my work on deals and other responsibilities. I was getting the work done in half the time, had time to breathe, was healthier and happier. I still worked long hours, but I had a life at the same time.

I only hope to find or create a similar environment in my future teams