Business Best Practices
Why Work-Life Balance is Essential to Company Performance
Nov 15, 2016
How the 24/7 affects the 9-5
1. Let the dogs out.
2. Place phone on the charger in my bedroom, on silent.
3. Spend time with my husband and my two year old son.
These are the three things I do every day when I get home from work. I am a firm believer that work shouldn’t be taken home unless absolutely necessary. Growing up, my Father never spoke of his work day at home. With 23+ years in the Air Force, his long days and constant travel usually left him too exhausted to chat about work at the dinner table. I only truly learned of his career accomplishments at his retirement ceremony at the end of his career. My mother on the other hand, has an at home business and was technically always “at work.” Both of my parents are hardworking individuals, it’s just interesting how they are complete opposites when it comes to balancing their work life vs. their home life. I guess I take after my Father in that respect in that I learned work-life balance at a young age.
Employees are tapped into their work 24/7 with technological advances putting items such as email, meeting requests, new or changed deadlines, and even questions such as “whose going to bring chili for food day?” right at their fingertips. Our phones and laptops keep us connected, even when we don’t want to be. One of the biggest HR topics for employers is how to master the work-life balance for their teams.
Studies have shown that employers who offer their team options that encourage “work-life balance” (WLB) are actually more productive than teams who don’t have those options. Some of those options may look something like the list below.
- Work from home/ remote location
- Flexible schedules
- Fitness membership programs, or allotted fitness time
- On-site child care
- Mandatory vacation time
- Paid volunteer hours
Having a program in place is key to ensuring that your employees not only take advantage of these perks, but also to have metrics to track the effectiveness of the program. Things such as the amount of sick leave used, no call/ no show rate, turnover, and even their volunteer rate for special projects and overall productivity are measurable results that can be tied to the effectiveness of a WLB program.
Psychology Today suggests that “workplaces that support employee wellbeing and allow time for employee recovery are part of creating a sustainable workforce where employees don’t become burned-out and ineffective.” Besides salary, WLB is one of the most important benefits to employees and a determining factor for whether or not they accept a position, or stay with an employer.
Although WLB is implemented from the top down, each individual employee must buy into the program as well. We all know the one employee who has a week’s worth of PTO banked and never takes a day off, not even when they are sick. In order to have WLB we as individuals must choose to invest in ourselves, spouses, children, family members and community as much as we invest in our work.
If you do not currently have a WLB program in place try implementing one option at a time in order to measure the effectiveness on your team’s productivity. To get started you can check out 7 Keys To Work Life Balance.
