ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how working people-especially parents and others with meaningful time-consuming outside commitments-can engage in open and constructive conversations in the organizations in which they work to promote effective balancing of work and family lives. We conceptualize the work-life balance issue as an ongoing process rather than as a state to be achieved, and we explore the challenges of speaking up in this balancing process. Our rationale for focusing on process starts with a conviction that tensions between work and nonwork demands are inevitable in the life of an employee, such that examining means of resolving periodic conflicts and imbalances may be as important as developing policies and structures to reduce them.
