Of course a workplace can do that - by encouraging a philosophy of work/life balance, and by encouraging their line managers to actively pursue this. Do you thi

Of course a workplace can do that - by encouraging a philosophy of work/life balance, and by encouraging their line managers to actively pursue this. Do you think workplaces just let their line managers roam free, with no guidance? There is a lot of active effort in my field (consultant engineering) to manage the true productivity and quality output of individuals, because managing this irresponsibly introduces an unacceptable level of risk to projects. That this (apparently) hasn't made great inroads into software development is another indicator of the field's immaturity and lack of liability. Because there are no serious consequences for shipping faulty software (outside of a very few fields such as industrial automation), companies are not required to care about things like employee happiness or productivity over time, and this is reflected in stories such as this. The best comments in this thread have advocated a personal, proactive approach to managing your work/life balance. This is true of almost everything about work - career development, training, raises, opportunities, etc etc.