General Session panel on Work-Life Balance

• Former First Lady Patricia Kempthorne and founder & CEO of the Twiga Foundation
• Jennifer Pugh, Chief Human Resources Officer, Scentsy

Patricia Kempthorne: Work life balance is just life – and how we make that work for all of us.

Jennifer Pugh: I don’t really think about it as work-life balance. I think about it as work-life integration. Taking all sides of my life, because I don’t compartmentalize, and integrating all of the elements into one. (Jennifer created a family policy handbook and standard operating procedures for her household of 11) I realized that my day became what everyone wanted from me – not the priorities I was setting.

Jennifer: Email makes everyone else’s needs and priorities your urgency. Try to minimize the number of times you check your inbox. Try color coding your calendar to be able to see at a glance if you have balance in your life – and address it if you don’t.

Patricia: Every business started out as an idea, as a dream. It is about the people that you bring into the organization to make it work. To have a bottom line in business that is sustainable you have to take care of your greatest asset – your people

Jennifer: To me business, like politics, is all about relationships.

Jennifer: Don’t create workplace policy to solve issues for your worst employees, create workplace policy based on your best employees and what you want to empower them to do.

Patricia: Work-life integration is more than a gender issue, a business or politics issue, but a cultural issue.

Be a mentor, be an advocate, raise your hand and speak up when there are work-life integration issues at play. Advocate for each other – women and men alike.