National campaign seeks better work-life balance

By Choi Sung-jin

“What will you do during the vacation?” “We have a company dinner today. Why don’t you just join in?”

These are some of the expressions that should disappear from the office, according to a national campaign launched recently by a government-civilian committee to help people balance work and family.

The campaign has set four principles: don’t ask reasons for leave of absence; don’t make phone calls or send messages outside working hours; share knowledge about expressions that help or deter work-family balance; and induce top managers to participate in the drive.

The campaigners, for instance, will encourage managers to erase the space on vacation leave forms for writing the reasons for the leave, eliminating embarrassing situations for would-be vacationers. Particularly, they want a ban on work-related communications off duty and to develop and share a message that courteously refuses to accept such calls (“You must know I cannot reply to contacts related to work out of office hours.”)

The new drive will also pick conversations that promote or hinder work-family balance, encouraging or discouraging their use at work.

Positive expressions include department heads encouraging workers late due to child-rearing or doing away with saying goodbye when going for the day. Negative expressions include coercive words for participating in office dinners or forcing night overtime, directly or indirectly.

The campaigners have also decided to encourage men’s participation in child care and other household work. Foremost among the moves is to induce men to take more paternity leave. The committee will select 500 workplaces and monitor whether they guarantee and encourage paternity leave.

“The public and private sectors need to join forces to fundamentally change our working culture based on full-time work, which leaves little room for normal family life,” said Koh Young-sun, vice minister of gender equality and family, during the committee meeting.

“I have hated it whenever my boss asked why I applied for leave,” said an office worker who welcomed the campaign. “I deserve the leave by law, and it’s up to me in whatever way I spend it. Why should I explain?”