Transcending the rhetoric versus reality challenge in work and family/life balance

![CDATA[In the last two decades there has been a steady increase not only in academic research on the "family friendly" workplace, but also in workers' and the public's demand for a healthy balance between work and family/life commitments, as well as in the government's commitment to ensuring such a workplace. This has resulted in a proliferation of purported "family friendly" workplaces and the subsequent claim that in many places management rhetoric about providing work and family/life balance does not in reality match organisational practices. Anecdotal evidence suggests that while there is some truth in this claim, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how organisations might proceed to evaluate the nature or measure the level of discrepancy between the rhetoric and the reality. This paper proposes using "The 3 P's (Policies, Provisions and Practices) and Discrepancy Level Model" to transcend the rhetoric versus reality challenge of the work and family/life balance. Three critical contributing factors are used to establish the level of discrepancy between rhetoric and reality.]]