I like the phrase ‘work-life harmony.’ I think ‘balance’ is a debasing metaphor because it implies there’s a strict trade-off.
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
Various studies have demonstrated that businesses that provide a decent work-life balance report more productivity by their employees. This supports the view that a healthy work-life balance is good not only for employees, but also for employers.
What’s not easy to know, though, is how you, as an employer, can promote healthy work-life balance for your employees WITHOUT reducing the quality of work. After all, going too much in either direction can be bad for business, especially for start-ups and medium-sized enterprises.
7 Proven Ways to Promote a Healthy Work-Life Balance for Your Employees
Just a quick reminder, you can apply every single one of these methods simultaneously without reducing (if not increasing) the performance of your employees. However, we strongly recommend applying them gradually, as sudden shifts in work cultures can backfire.
That being said, here 7 methods to provide a healthy work-life balance in your business:
1. Encourage “True” Time Off
On paper, work time is work time, and time off is time off. Unfortunately, the reality is often different, as off time never really feels pressure-free when an employee is receiving work-related messages/notifications.
Work-related messages have increased over the years, especially out of hours messages, and many employees feel pressured to answer these communications after hours or at weekends.
The fact that work communication tools like Rocket Chat, Clickup, Teams, Slack, and Matter Most exist also makes it easier than ever to reach out to your employees at any given time.
All of these break the resting cycle that employees need, leading to reduced productivity, exhaustion, and, worst case scenario, burnout.
Try to discourage after-hours emails and Slack messages. Use tools like Slack’s “Do Not Disturb” mode or auto-delete emails sent during vacations. Lead by example: If leaders unplug, employees will too.
2. Set Realistic Workloads
An overloaded employee will get you nowhere, and just because a job can be done by one person doesn’t mean the workload on that person shouldn’t be considered.
According to a Mental Health UK survey, one in three (34%) adults in the UK have reported frequently experiencing high or extreme levels of pressure or stress in the workplace. As an SME, you need your good employees working at their best to help you scale up.
If you want to know whether your employees are burnt out, go ahead and survey your team about their workloads. The answers might surprise you.
We recommend that you audit workloads quarterly. If teams consistently work late to meet deadlines, adjust expectations or hire support. Use project management tools (Asana, Trello) to visualise capacity.
You can also utilise hybrid approaches to allow your employees some breathing room. COVID-19, as terrible as it was, has shown the world that most tasks can be done from home.
So, why not gather non-office-needing tasks in one day and have your employees do these tasks away from the office?
3. Normalise Breaks During the Day
Take this one with a grain of salt, as the results can vary among people, but in general, your brain focus starts to suffer after 30-50 minutes of working.
The focus time can be even shorter if the task at hand is boring, and that’s not even mentioning the reduced “focus span” of people because of social media and doom scrolling.
The moral of the story is, short, 5-minute breaks are as important as regular lunch breaks. Encourage micro-breaks (5-minute walks) and discourage “lunch-at-desk” culture. Some companies even use break-tracking apps (like TimeOut) to remind staff to pause.
4. Try the “Results-Only” Culture
People’s abilities are different, and punishing underperformers without rewarding great achievers is guaranteed to burn out good employees.
As an employer, you need specific results, and it shouldn’t matter how long it took your employees to achieve said results. So, when you get results in shorter times or more results than you expected from someone, do recognise that.
All in all, you should judge performance by output, not hours logged. If someone finishes tasks early, you should either:
- Let them log off. Drop arbitrary metrics like “active time” on Slack.
- Reward them for the increased performance in exchange for their faster results.
Around 43% of UK workers admit to regularly working unpaid overtime. You don’t want to undermine your business with an easily avoidable mistake like this one.
5. Provide Family-Friendly Benefits
According to a KPMG survey, 54% of parents reported that their work times often conflict with parenting duties. A parent who’s taking care of their children shouldn’t be punished for doing so by having to adhere to strict work hours, especially if they still achieve the expected results.
If your work culture is flexible enough, do give such parents some flexible work hours, like allowing them to clock in or clock out a bit earlier or later, depending on their needs. Done correctly, they can still give you a full work day, just one that doesn’t clash with theirs.
We also respect that your work culture can’t be adjusted beyond its original hours, but that doesn’t mean you can’t retain such employees in different ways.
For example, you could consider providing them with paid parental leave (even for non-birthing parents), and watch the employee retention rate increase.
6. Mental Health Support Is Important
Prioritising the mental health of your employees is more important than you think. According to Deloitte, poor mental health costs employers in the UK around £51 billion annually, through presenteeism, sickness absence, and staff turnover. Plus, nearly one-third of them already feel unmotivated to work because of financial issues.
In other words, even if your workspace is ideal, your employees could still have mental pressure and potentially mental issues from external sources.
There’s a saying that for every £1 spent on mental health, employers see a £4 ROI in productivity.
On paper, this can look something like this:
- Offer £400-500/year therapy stipends via platforms like Lyra Health.
- Train managers in mental health first aid (recognising anxiety, depression).
Note: These aren’t set in stone; you can get creative according to your own business line.
7. Regularly Ask for Feedback
We can’t emphasise how important it is for your employees to feel heard and appreciated.
According to a study by Oracle, a ridiculously high 85% of employees feel unheard, and if that’s paired with burnout, mental issues, external pressure, and better contracts from competitors, you’ll run out of good employees faster than you can replenish.
This can be critical for SMEs, but you can handle it in two simple steps.
First, send anonymous quarterly surveys (e.g., “What’s one policy that would improve your balance?”). This should give you an idea of what your employees are really struggling with and eliminate the guesswork.
Take care not to go back to relying on guesswork while providing a solution to the feedback you received. Even when you’re trying to help, you might make things worse if you don’t hit the mark, which leads us to step two.
Go ahead and host “Balance Roundtables” where employees brainstorm solutions. List the most prominent issues that you received from the feedback, and let everyone have their say about what they think should change.
Final Words
Jobs are everywhere, and the turnover rate is more unpredictable than ever. Even if you think that you have your new blood addition under control, a sudden spike in the loss of multiple employees can leave your business at risk.
Don’t leave the fate of your foundation to luck; find productive, reliable employees, lock them in, and foster a good work-life balance for others to help them become productive themselves. You are benefiting from their hard work, after all.
The post How Employers Can Promote A Healthy Work-Life Balance for Their Employees appeared first on Real Business.