Work-life balance is the method of equally prioritizing professional and personal life. It refers to how a person balances his life when doing work-related affairs at home. This balance is essential for an individual’s physical and mental health, but it is not that easy to accomplish. It can also be particularly challenging for people who do not find any significant difference in their emotions between personal and work life.
Furthermore, work-life balance was already a hot issue even before the pandemic breakout. It became harder to accomplish as technology paved the way for remote work- unlike before, people can now work anywhere, anytime. If we think about it, work-life balance was easier to accomplish in the past because people didn’t need to bring work home. But because of the rise of remote work, balancing personal and professional life became more difficult.
That said, what is the importance of work-life balance?
The Significance of Work-life Balance
When people get enough support and time for their career and personal life, they are happier. They have the time to take care of themselves and focus on their mental health and general well-being. As a result, they have better relationships with their colleagues and employers, boosting their performance and creativity. They will get the job done efficiently and make fewer errors.
Reducing Health Issues
Poor work-life balance is the common reason for stress. Plus, it increases the risk of health problems. Stressed workers also tend to suffer from several mental and physical health problems. What does that mean for the employee? It’s simple, increased absenteeism rates.
The management can support their employees by offering flexible working arrangements that allow them to control their work hours. By doing this, you encourage your staff to take care of themselves, reducing health issues and absences.
Less Burnout
Indeed, stress is part of our lives. We all experience it from time to time. But too much stress can lead to burnout, so employees need to avoid stress as much as possible.
Burnout can lead to many consequences, including lack of focus, poor performance, and decreased energy to work- these things can result in emergencies. For example, lack of focus can cause an employee to meet accidents resulting in brain injury. And even though their brain injury lawyer can help them file claims, the employee will no longer regain the kind of life they once had.
Companies should implement programs that would prevent employee burnout and help them stay healthy in all aspects.
Helping Employees Achieve Work-life Balance
Employees can only achieve a healthy work-life balance if their companies support them. Here, your role as an employer is to ensure that your employees are not tiring themselves out to the point that they no longer take care of their health.
Here’s how you can help your employees.
Set Client Boundaries
Make sure that your clients are well-aware of your business hours. It would be helpful if they knew that your employees could no longer accommodate them past the closing hour of the office. But of course, you want to keep your clients happy. The best solution here is by offering your employees flexible schedules where some of them can work on weekends, holidays, or weekends.
Implement Employee Hours Strictly
Employee productivity tends to decline even though the staff is working long hours. This is because they are exhausted. Employee stress levels can significantly rise as the company continues to grow. To solve this, you need to enforce employee hours strictly. Encourage everyone to come to work on time and leave once their shift is done. As much as possible, do not encourage excessive overtime.
Allow Flexibility
Instead of implementing over time, it would be better to allow flexibility. By doing this, employees can choose the hours to work and rest. You can still enable overtime to help them earn more, but make sure that they are not burning themselves out.
Remote Work
Remote work does not apply to all businesses. But if your company can operate even though your employees are at home, try to consider. Allowing remote work is an excellent way to show your employees how much you trust them. After all, they will no longer be supervised. And although remote work comes with a few drawbacks, it’s also an opportunity for you to determine which among your employees are performing well even without someone overseeing them.
Integrating work-life balance into your plans requires discipline and creativity, yet the positive results would highly benefit your company. Prioritizing work-life balance can increase employee productivity, happiness, and company image. So try to implement the example above and ask your employees about the best method that works for them.