Work Life Balance

Attaining the right work life balance is vital for your employees, not only to maintain their well-being but to help improve employee relationships and enhance productivity and efficiency in the workplace.

Determining effective ways to help them achieve this balance and being aware of any potential imbalances before they cause serious problems can be a crucial aspect of successful business management.

Why Is It So Important?
Ensuring your employees have a good work-life balance is central to promoting a healthy and supportive work environment. This in turn will improve productivity, bolster employee loyalty to the firm and benefit both staff and management. Many employees have a large number of demands on their time outside of work, with family commitments needing to be carefully balanced with work responsibilities. If insufficient attention is given to the home life, it can lead to poor performance and feelings of resentment in the workplace. There can even be additional health problems such as stress, depression and potentially serious physical health issues.

In order to help your employees attain a good work-life balance, it is essential to ensure your company’s culture supports this endeavour. An aggressive, highly pressured approach may lead employees to feel they have to put in extremely long hours in order to gain recognition or get the required results. This can actually have an adverse effect on productivity, as not only do staff not feel valued, but they may feel that they simply are not able to keep up with performance expectations.

How Can It Be Achieved?
One of the biggest challenges to having a successful work-life balance is the issue of spending enough time with family. Flexible working practices can be of great use here. Provided the work gets done, allowing staff to work to the hours that best suit them and fit around their responsibilities can have advantages for both parties. Advances in technology mean that remote working is another option. With access to the internet and a phone, many people are able to work at least part of the time from home. Without a work commute they may actually end up working longer hours but, more importantly, they can juggle work and home life more effectively. Not only is this likely to lead to increased productivity, but it will also encourage loyalty to your company.

When developing strategies to improve the work-life balance of your employees, it is worth remembering that long hours spent in the workplace will not be the only factor that can lead to potential problems. Lack of support from management or co-workers, an excessive workload, a poorly defined job role, inadequate training and concerns over job security can also all lead to employees feeling their work is taking over their life. Combat these supplementary issues by ensuring staff receive the support they need in order to effectively carry out their jobs and by addressing any potential pitfalls before they have a significant impact. Be on the lookout for potential signs of a poor work-life imbalance, such as unusual levels of absenteeism or unpunctuality, a drop in performance or a sudden lack of commitment or focus.

Not only does supporting a good work-life balance make your employees feel valued and contribute to their well-being, but it can actually have positive effects on productivity too.