Work-life balance is no longer a negotiable concept. Instead, it’s now a must-have for top talents. Research says 72% of workers believe work-life balance is an essential aspect of their job, and 57% of job seekers say a poor work-life balance is a deal breaker when getting a new job.
Moreover, providing a healthy work-life balance for employees can boost engagement and retention. It also enhances organizational growth as it keeps workers focused and productive.
However, promoting a healthy work-life balance for workers is a tough job. How do you know what a healthy work-life balance means to each employee? What new development must you make to ensure a healthy work-life balance for your workforce?
Although creating a workplace environment that enables a healthy work-life balance can be daunting, it’s easier when you know precisely what to do. So, this article discusses the top five ways to help your employees handle life and work demands better.
Let’s get into it.
Work-life balance is the state of prioritizing both your personal and professional lives. Employees with a healthy work-life balance can divide their time and attention between their personal and professional obligations and lead both lives successfully without one affecting the other.
A healthy work-life balance leads to fulfillment and happiness for employees. They can be great at home and perform other family and personal regulations, leading to a happier, more fulfilling life. However, employees who suffer from a poor work-life balance struggle to juggle both aspects of their lives effectively. As a result, they work longer hours, miss personal obligations, and have little to no personal time.
Consequently, they experience burnout, and unhealthy lifestyle habits, including overworking, sleeping late, or taking little rest. They also encounter frequent health challenges, lack motivation, and feel unfulfilled. Having these types of employees in the organization hampers the company’s growth. These employees are likely to deliver below expectations and lack the engagement and enthusiasm to perform their roles excellently.
More than 60% of U.S. employees say they don’t have a healthy work-life balance. But here are five practical tips you can implement now to improve a healthy work-life balance at your workplace.
An excellent way to promote a healthy work-life balance is to make the work hours flexible for employees. While creating a fixed work schedule is great for getting all workers to come in simultaneously, rotating shifts can allow staff to choose a convenient time to work. This way, they have time to attend to other personal obligations and execute their roles conveniently.
Companies should implement rotating shift schedules to ensure all shifts are covered while creating workplace variety and preventing workers from getting stuck in a rut. In addition, since they don’t have to come to work at a similar time of the day, workers can consider their jobs less monotonous, boosting their engagement.
However, rotating shifts can get tricky. So, taking the proper steps when creating a shift schedule is critical. Here are the top factors to consider:
Finally, excellent rotating software will provide more accuracy and ensure all shifts are covered, boosting efficiency. So, adopt shift-rotating software to simplify your processes.
Workplace health and well-being programs facilitate and improve workers’ health and wellness. Providing these programs for workers will inform them of meaningful ways to improve their wellness and what they can do. Besides training, you can provide resources to support employees in achieving their wellness goals.
For example, you can:
In addition, encourage breaks. Urge workers to maximize their break time by taking time off their screens, meditating, or taking walks. These activities may seem trivial, but they are significant steps to helping your workers maintain a work-life balance and reduce employee turnover.
First, these simple, healthy practices prevent burnout, eliminate overworking, and promote a healthy lifestyle. In return, they improve their mental health and wellness. Therefore, put health and well-being programs in place to boost worker experience.
While at it, ensure these activities are what your workers want. Don’t impose. Instead, ask questions and review the wellness initiatives your workers enjoy. Doing this will ensure employees participate in the wellness programs willingly and not out of obligation. Consequently, it boosts employee engagement and promotes a healthy work-life balance.
Childcare and other family obligations play a vital role in employees' performance at work. It affects how they work, when they work, and how long. For example, 55% of parents have missed at least one full day of work due to childcare issues, and parents lose two hours of work per week. As a result, 77% of working parents consider family-friendliness and childcare benefits essential when seeking job opportunities.
Combining childcare and other family obligations with work takes a toll on employees. Consequently, it affects their concentration, efficiency, and output. Therefore providing childcare and family benefits will relieve them of some of their responsibilities and allow them to better combine both aspects of their lives.
There are different ways to promote childcare and family support as a company. First, offer on-site childcare. This will stop employees from taking frequent breaks at work to drop off and pick up their kids. Also, since employees have their children within reach, they can stop worrying about them and focus on their responsibilities at work.
Other childcare and family benefits include paid leave, dependent care assistance programs, and flexible work schedules. Again, it's best to check in with your workers to know the best childcare and family benefits for their needs. Understanding their needs will help you provide the childcare and family support that suits their goals.
Therefore, provide as many child and family perks as your organization can afford. Ensure the support programs are not one-size-fits-all. Instead, tailor them to each employee's needs to promote an effective work-life balance.
Poor workload distribution can lead to overworking and burnout. It can also hamper efficiency and employee output. So, the best way to ensure tasks are evenly distributed across teams is to implement an effective work management system.
To do this, have a complete picture of the work system across teams. What does a typical workload look like in your company? Examine the previous month's workload to understand what the following months of work will look like. Acquiring an overview of your organization's monthly, quarterly, or yearly workload will help you distribute responsibilities effectively and set suitable milestones and timelines.
Efficient workload management is challenging without software to simplify the processes involved. So, adopt a project management tool to automate, organize, and visualize this process. Doing this allows you to set monotonous activities on auto-pilot. It also promotes efficiency and enables an effective workplace management system that produces perfect results.
Adapting a process that works will allow you to distribute tasks evenly and according to each individual's capacity. It will also help set realistic timelines to prevent overwork, extra working hours, and burnout.
Establishing an efficient workload management system will primarily simplify management activities and enable organized workflows. Finally, it promotes effective task distribution and monitoring, allowing an excellent work-life balance for team members across the company.
Promoting a healthy work-life balance is an ongoing process, not a one-off activity. So, it’s critical to constantly review your strategies and activities to know what’s working and what’s not. In addition, employees are continually evolving, so their idea of a healthy work-life balance can change over time.
For example, while unmarried workers may prefer lunch breaks at some point in their career, they may prioritize childcare and family benefits after marriage. So, it's essential to follow up on employees to make new adjustments to the company's work-life balance practices.
Again, a healthy workplace with work-life balance can’t be achieved with a generalized approach. Since workers have varying needs, requesting feedback from each individual is critical. Understand their stage and the best practices they can adopt to maintain a healthy work-life balance. This can range from flexible work hours to health and wellness packages, childcare breaks, or paid leave. Understanding what matters to every employee is key to establishing a work-life balance initiative that works.
Work-life balance is among the most effective ways to enhance engagement, boost retention, and increase organizational output. If workers can effectively combine their work and personal responsibilities, they will lead fulfilling lives, positively impacting their performance.
However, creating a work-life balance is a challenging experience, so this article simplifies the process by providing five effective hacks. Follow the practices discussed in this post to establish a positive work environment that promotes a healthy work-life balance.
Lydia Iseh is a professional writer with more than five years of experience in creating top-notch SEO content that provides value to the reader. She is a verified author on over 100 websites, a feat she achieved by producing informative and captivating pieces. When she's not writing, she can be found relaxing at the beach or catching up on a TV show. You can reach her through her website for your content needs.
