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How to Achieve a Healthy Work-Life Balance
People react differently when they hear about “work-life balance”. It either makes you feel a sense of balance in your daily activities, or reminds you of the one aspect that keeps dominating every other thing in your life.
Work life balance refers to a situation whereby you are able to apportion the right amount of effort and time to both your personal and work life. This definition highlights few important points. First of all, it talks about a situation, instead of a permanent issue. This also makes it more of a personal thing, which will be different and unique for every-one.
Different individuals have different work-life circumstances and this has an influence on the way they are able to strike a balance on both ends.
Lеt’ѕ hаvе a lооk at ѕоmе оf thе most рrоminеnt wауѕ by whiсh Wоrkрlасе Productivity can be inсrеаѕе:
Lastly, it alludes to the person having some control over the situation by utilizing the ability to apportion the right amount of effort and time to both personal and work life.Having the feeling and believe that we have control over the situations and happenings in our life is key to determining if we will feel the effect of stress or not and if we can truly experience work life balance.
Sadly, some people still think work-life balance is something that only people with families should be concerned about. Such people are the ones who think about work-life balance as concession employers have to make because someone has to take a sick child to the hospital or be at their son’s football game.
Traditionally, employers expect employees to put in at least 8 hours of work from Mondays to Fridays. This traditional requirement is usually non-negotiable. But to be factual, by the time you have taken out the time spent on lunch, chatting with best floor buddy, departmental meetings, and unplanned project trips that require you walking up and down the elevator, you would have put less than the required 8 hours into your job!
This means that work-life balance goes beyond spending more time on your private matters and spending less at your place of work. Honestly, there is no single human in existence who does not need balance in life.
We are all dynamic beings and we can strike a balance between our career responsibilities and personal lives, and with the technological advancement we see each day, it is way easier now than it has ever been.
Having the feeling and believe that we have control over the situations and happenings in our life is key to determining if we will feel the effect of stress or not and if we can truly experience work life balance.
The truth is that since we can influence what we think consciously, it is always possible to feel in control.
How Can You Tell If Your Life And Work Are In Balance?
When life and work are well balanced it is less likely for you to feel stressed.Feelings of negative stress are less prevalent and less likely to occur when work and life are in balance. This is in fact your own feedback mechanism for attaining work and life balance, but it is not completely reliable considering the fact that one person’s balance might not work for another. It has to do with the limitations we create between work and life and we all design and place this limits in our unique place.
Work life balance doesn’t really mean apportioning the same amount of effort and time to work and off work activities. Over time the best work life balance will differ, depending on one’s life and work circumstances. The big question you should be asking yourself is “do I feel happy with my current work life balance situation?” If you are happy, then it is possible you are enjoying a healthy work life balance.
Feedback frоm оthеrѕ is іmроrtаnt too, раrtісulаrlу from wоrk colleagues, fаmіlу and frіеndѕ. If your сurrеnt ѕіtuаtіоn is having a detrimental еffесt оn relationships wіth colleagues, fаmіlу оr friends thеn іt’ѕ lіkеlу thаt wоrk аnd lіfе are not in bаlаnсе.
It саn hеlр tо соnѕіdеr 4 kеу lіfе ԛuаdrаntѕ іn rеlаtіоn to wоrk аnd lіfе before еxаmіnіng hоw well thеѕе аrе bаlаnсеd fоr уоu:
- Work
- Self
- Friends
- Family
Consider the following facts:
1. Balance does not look the same for everyone
2. Balance does not look the same everyday
Why should employers care bout work-life balance?
The best employers to work with these days are the ones who recognize how important it is for their employees to strike a balance between work and their individual lives by encouraging flexibility. When this flexibility is put in place, employees can address the rest of life priorities with a happy face, and this also keeps up a happy work place.It goes without saying, therefore, that happy employees are productive employees. Employers who have cranky, burnt -out employees on their payroll should not expect maximum productivity. When employees’ lives are in balance, they have less stress.
With the current technological advancement available today, managers should focus on the amount of work which employees are putting in, with less emphasis on where they are situated during each hour of work.
Failure to help employees get the best out of their work-life balance can diminish the super productivity they can bring to the workplace. The result of this is poor morale, poor retention ability, poor ratings on customer satisfaction and reduced productivity.
How Employees Can Get Work-Life Balance?
One truth we all have to face is, we do not have a professional life and then a personal life. All we have is actually one life. In the past, employees used to think about their jobs as the “employer’s work”, but this has gradually changed. Today, they are aware that their employers do not own them. It is equally important that employers too do not think there is a particular portion of their employees’ time that belongs to them on workdays.How can this help employees to balance up their work against their personal lives? The answer is a very simple one. Employees are expected to produce results. Employers are expected to produce the paycheck.
If therefore an employee thinks they can they can do half of a day’s work before anyone else gets to work, they should be allowed to resume at 6am as long as this is convenient for them. Sometimes, resuming at 6am does not mean being physically present in the office, if it means getting some work done at home to free up the latter part of the day, then this should be totally encouraged.
Take for instance, work resumes at 9am, but the earlier part of the day is free for you. You can get up as early as 5 am to work on that project you have to finish at month end, so that you can just spend 4 or 5hoursmore to complete the work at the workplace. The rest part of the evening should then be less stressful for you, or give you time to finish early so that you would not be late for that all important family eat-out dinner.
Work-life balance is therefore not less hours at work or more hours at home. It is the peace of mind that comes with knowing each day, that we have not wasted time, but achieved our set objectives on different fronts.
As said earlier, work-life balance is not set on stone and can be manipulated to suit individuals and their day to day activities, both the workplace and at home.