Just in Time for Summer Vacation – Meet “Weisure”

The Brand for Talent blog, had a post from back in May that definitely caught my eye based on the title alone – A Life of Weisure. What is weisure you ask? Weisure is a term coined by NYU sociology professor Dalton Conley that is meant to explain the “blurring of work and play, what we do, and where we do it”, as explained by this article on CNN.com. The concept of weisure struck me as very timely given the rise of the new creative class of bloggers, and definitely raises a lot of questions around traditional concepts of work.

The Brand for Talent post discusses how the newest generation of workers “has entered the workplace with new habits”:

We call these workers “Consumers of Work”. The change in consumer habits fundamentally alters what an organization must do to connect. No longer is it enough for a company to select one channel to reach current and prospective workers. A company seeking to attract, retain and engage must adapt and be able to reach these workers using multiple channels during work hours and outside of work.

So while I’m not sure that weisure is an entirely new concept, we now have an official term for it, which at least for me, makes this even more real. For HR this has numerous consequences starting with the expectations of employees. If the work and leisure lines are blurry, having hard and fast rules about something like social networking at work or requirements to qualify for personal leave may work against you in the race for the best talent, as you can’t expect your employees to fall into the traditional 9 to 5 grind – especially if they are creative, tacit workers. These “always on” employees can be a benefit to your organization, but you may have to start to accept that some of their work will be done outside of your 9 to 5 window, and outside of their cubicle.

Another HR area I see the trend towards weisure really impacting, is how vacation time is structured and doled out. In the post, the writer uses the example of downloading her email while on a remote Greek island. Having had this same (frustrating / liberating?) experience while at our remote cottage each summer, I actually laughed out loud. While we want our employees to be engaged and connect personally with the strategic goals of our organization, at the same time, what has happened to the value of a true, disconnected vacation? Maybe HR needs to encourage employees to disconnect and focus on creating a culture where disconnecting for a week or two is the norm, not the exception. Otherwise we risk a rise in burnout, sick (and stress) leave and resentment of the job.

According to the CNN article, there’s no going back. Even with the recession resetting many of our financial expectations, new social networking phenomena and wireless technology are making it almost impossible to conduct anything except weisure. Yet another reason why HR and corporate policies need to stay current – and keep pace with the blurring line between work and play.

And exciting time to be in HR! What do you think about weisure? – share any of your observations or ideas with us!