One of the key factors believed to help attract and retain talent is providing your employees with a good work-life balance. This can be through offering employees’ options including: working from home, part-time roles or job shares. Successful businesses understand the benefits to both the employee and employer, seeing results of increased productivity, engagement and reduced absenteeism.
But are you making sure that you have a healthy work-life balance? All of us want to succeed in our career and make our mark. As a business owner and/or leader the pressure and stakes are high. We not only want to succeed for ourselves but also for our employees and family.
The pressure we put on ourselves to have it all, a successful business, having outside interests and being a good partner and parent, striking a balance can be an enormous challenge.
There is no easy formula to a good work-life balance, so just how can we achieve this elusive concept? You want to achieve your business goals without burning out or missing out on those important life events.
Unique balance
Start by recognising that everyone has their own unique balance, and it will very much depend on the stage in life that you are at. As we continue to grow and evolve so will our priorities and ways of working. Striking the balance will shift and change throughout our lives. One size, definitely does not fit all, in the same way that equal time doesn’t necessarily mean equal commitment.
Define what success means to you and work out a realistic strategy to achieve these goals, whether they are business or personal ones. Create a long-term plan to balance and achieve them.
Managing technology
Don’t be a slave to technology, it can be a great servant but a terrible master. With the myriad of technology available to us it can offer greater flexibility, but it can be very hard to switch off from it all. You can easily forget the essential benefits of undivided attention and personal communication in all aspects of your life.
Most leaders find an important tool to enable them to stay on top of things is to have all your communication platforms linked together. Whether you are a fan of technology or not it’s important that you recognise when to make yourself available, and when to switch off and be unavailable.
Build strong support networks and collaboration
You cannot control every aspect of your life. Emotional support is vital in creating a healthy work-life balance.
Be honest with yourself and realistic about how much you can take on and multi-task. Don’t be afraid to say no and learn how to delegate, through building relationships and trust.
Think about what things you can hand over to your partner or management team. Is there a primary care giver at home or do you need paid help or assistance? It’s not just leaders but many people today depend on help from extended family and friends. Whether that’s grandparents helping with childcare or school car pools and so on.
Personal and professional networks can help us with practical and emotional support. You may want to reach out in to your community through local business networks, to see how you can offer support to each other and possibly collaborate.
Manage your time
Time management is something that consistently comes up when I speak to my clients. This is a huge topic and area of concern for employers and employees. Here are a few ways to help get you started, but this isn’t an exhaustive list.
- Set yourself clear and realistic goals.
- Create boundaries for yourself so that you aren’t always working when you’re at home.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for support.
- Do a time audit for one week. Look at exactly where you spend your time and where it is going. Include your evenings and weekends in this audit.
Most business leaders know at times they are going to be working long hours. But you can’t be at your best if you’re tired and burnt out. If you’re spending half your time firefighting, on things like people management issues, then it’s time to take stock and build strategies and support networks to help you redress your work-life balance.