Work life balance has been a movement over the last 25 years. With corporate downsizing, increased competition, increased responsibilities and organizations trying to achieve more with less, the employees are feeling the crunch. Employees are the ones carrying the burden of getting it done. Feeling the pressure to keep their job and climb the corporate ladder, employees are feeling the pressure to demonstrate commitment and work to please management. Especially with the current recession, we’re all experiencing more pressure to outperform coworkers in an effort to stay employed.
So with all of this corporate pressure, how can leadership help employees with work life balance?
Set the Example
The first thing leadership can do to help employees with work life balance is to demonstrate their own work life balance. When an employee sees their manager come in at the crack of dawn and stay long after all other employees have gone home, they often feel obligated to do the same. Leadership needs to demonstrate personal work life balance and can do so by working reasonable hours, having interests outside of the organization and demonstrating personal priorities that are different than work responsibilities.
Establishing Boundaries
One of the keys to balancing work and personal life is to set boundaries. Employees need to feel ok with setting boundaries and communicating personal limitations on job expectations. Every employee should step up to the plate during busy seasons at work but should not feel guilty for trying to maintain interests outside of work. Leaders who have personal boundaries teach employees that boundaries are important and that they place value on a life outside of work.
Hobbies
Hobbies are an important aspect of work life balance. Whether that hobby is reading a book, bike riding, gardening, golfing or just shopping, everyone should have interests outside of their work responsibilities. This is important for a couple reasons. The first reason is that hobbies help employees to “think” about something other than their job. When employees are so engrossed in their job and they think of nothing else, they can become jaded and resentful that their job has taken away any personal time they have. Over time, this can create one of two things; 1. Someone who identifies with their job and has become dependent on their identity with their job or 2. The employee begins to resent their employer for not allowing them more time for personal interests. This kind of resentment can fester over time and manifest in negativity as the employee approaches burnout. The second reason is that typically hobbies help reduce stress and give pleasure to us. Hobbies should be part of a balanced life and should be embraced.
Priorities
Leadership needs to teach right priorities. When leadership has proper priorities, they demonstrate the importance to their staff. Leadership can demonstrate this by merely talking about their outside interests and taking time for themselves. When a manager does not take vacation or days off, they demonstrate to the employees that time off is not important. However, when managers take time for personal interests, they demonstrate to their employees the importance of balancing work and home life. This approach makes it easier for employees to establish their own priorities.
Commitment
Leadership needs to be committed to demonstrating work life balance and committed to ensuring their employees do the same. This can be challenging when things get hectic and overwhelming at work but it is important to maintain this commitment.
Practical things leadership can do to help employees:
- Talk to employees about the importance of taking time off.
- Encourage employees to plan their vacations in advance.
- Leadership should schedule and plan their vacations and time off in advance.
- Talk to employees about their personal interests and encourage outside interests.
- Leadership should share stories about their own personal interests and how having outside interest have helped them manage work and family obligations.
- Organizations should do special interest stories on employee outside interests. For example, if an employee has won competitive tennis tournaments, talk about it.
As leaders, it is our responsibility to set the work life balance example for employees. If we are in this for long haul, we need to know how to pace ourselves and to teach those we lead the same.
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I love this whole post and especially like what you said about being in this for the long haul. With my previous jobs in Corporate America as Controller and CPA, I was constantly faced with busy “seasons” (year end, audits, taxes, financial statement reporting deadlines, etc.). Through all of it, I worked around my hobbies, rather than eliminating them because they helped fuel me to do the job.