WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Introduction

Work plays a significant part in all our lives. Employers expect more from their people, which leads to them feeling more pressure to achieve greater results. These pressures appear to have reached a breaking point, as people realise that they need to achieve better balance in their lives.

 

Image 1: Work-life balance (hrguru.com, 2022)

Why be Work-Life balanced?

Maintaining a balanced healthy work-life is not only important for health and relationships, but it improves the employee’s productivity, and ultimately performance.

Businesses that gain a reputation for encouraging work-life balance have become very attractive – especially when you consider how difficult it can be to attract and retain younger workers these days (Wedgwood.J, 2022). Focusing on work-life balance will help you draw a valuable talent-pool for new recruits and boost retention rates. It will save time and money, whilst ensuring a high level of in-house talent.

Image 2: Determinants, Nature & Consequence of Work-Life Balance (Hooja.H.R ,2018) 

Reasons why work-life balance is important.

• Fewer Health Problems.
• More Engagement in work.
• Fewer 'Burnouts'
• More Mindfulness

The harmful impact of an unbalanced work-life dynamic.

1. Work-life balance impacts all areas of your life. It tends to show up differently for different people, however. Here are few characteristics associated with poor balance.
2. You can’t stop thinking about work when you’re not at work. Those who find it difficult to draw boundaries between work and life are at higher risk of burnout.
3. Your relationships — both inside and outside of work — are beginning to suffer. You may be easily irritated with co-workers and distant with loved ones.
4. You feel off. You have unexplained aches and pains. You may rarely have energy or find it difficult to focus when at work.
5. When you’re not at work, everything seems uninteresting or unimportant. You just don’t feel like doing anything unless you must. You often turn down invitations, further isolating yourself from your friends.
6. You spend a lot of money outsourcing support for personal tasks. Your laundry, dishes, and mail pile up, waiting for the day when you “have time” to get around to them.
7. You struggle to take time off when you’re sick, mentally strained, or when you need to take care of personal tasks. You don’t remember your last vacation and you don’t have plans to take one.
8. You can’t imagine doing what you do for the rest of your life. Even if you work in a field or a company you once loved, it feels impossible to imagine continuing life, as it is, for long.
9. You always feel like no matter what you’re doing, you should be doing something else. Over time, this lack of presence and direction often leads to an existential crisis.

Image 3: Effects of imbalance work-life (Donaldson.G, 2022)

Some strategies to support a culture of balance within your organisation include;

• Offer flexibility with hours and work location – this is the first thing that usually comes to mind when people think of work-life balance. Flexible start and finish times and the ability to work from home – who wouldn’t love this?
• Encourage staff to take leave – encouraging your employees to use their annual leave to take a break can go a long way towards valuing their work-life balance. And I’m not just talking a day here or there. We suggest encouraging at least a 7-10 day break for them to feel really refreshed.
• Competitive compensation ­– this closely links to the above strategy. If employees aren’t competitively remunerated, they can’t afford to truly enjoy their leave so it’s important to make sure this is reviewed periodically.
• Work perks such as gym memberships, wellness initiatives, team events etc – creating opportunities within the work confines to improve team member wellness clearly demonstrates your desire to improve the employee’s overall work-life balance.
• Review team workloads – be sure to regularly review each team’s workload to ensure that they aren’t becoming overwhelmed. Overwhelmed teams = working longer hours to fit the work in = burnout = no work-life balance. It’s that simple.
• Comfortable office conditions – bean bags and a table tennis table in the office isn’t the be-all-end-all, but having a break-out area for people to step away from the computer screen to relax and socialise definitely helps.
• Opportunities for professional growth – creating opportunities for growth helps employees to continually be challenged and removes the likelihood of becoming stagnant in their role.
• Lead by example – it is crucial that your leaders (think managers all the way up to the Directors) are demonstrating to the teams how to achieve balance. Taking annual leave, taking lunch breaks, and participating in the walking club are all acts that will demonstrate your desire to achieve a work-life balance.
• Opportunities for social connection – social connection encourages engagement, helps to promote overall wellbeing in your employees and essentially facilitates a culture where employees are empowered to reach their full potential.
• Focus on productivity as opposed to hours worked ­ this strategy doesn’t work in every working environment, so I recommend doing some research about this before implementing. But in essence, this is based on the premise that long hours don’t make you more productive.
• Create a happy workplace – seems pretty simple, right? Find out more about creating a happy workplace here.

Conclusion

Individuals who perceive their work-life to be balanced will experience  a sense  of  harmony in  life  and optimal psychophysical  conditions  that  enable them  to  meet  the long-term  demands  of  work  and  non-work  roles. Employee satisfaction is a key to the employee engagement, at the same time things should be seen in the employer’s perspective too. Unjustifiable requirement by the employees for the work-life balance should be considered. Everything could be achieved with mutual understanding and benefits.

References

Wedgwood.J, 2022, The Importance of Work-Life Balance (Available at) https://thehappinessindex.com/blog/importance-work-life-balance/ (Accessed on May 2023)

Campbell.A.C, 2021, How to have a good work-life balance (hint: it’s not just about time) (Available at) https://www.betterup.com/blog/how-to-have-good-work-life-balance (Accessed on May 2023)

Hooja.H.R ,2018. Work-life balance: an overview. (Accessed on) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348164280_WORK-LIFE_BALANCE_AN_OVERVIEW (Accessed on May 2023)

Hrguru.com, 2022. Encouraging work-life balance in your business (Available at) https://hrgurus.com.au/encouraging-work-life-balance-in-your-business/ (Accessed on May 2023)

Donaldson.G, 2022. A complete guide to promotiong a healthy remote work-life balance (Available at) https://www.process.st/a-complete-guide-to-promoting-a-healthy-remote-work-life-balance/ (Accessed on May 2023)