Culture & Worklife - Recent Threads

The Art of Delegation: Empowering Teams for Success

Yuan Chao — Tue, 23 May 2023 19:25:18 GMT

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The Importance of Self-Care in Today's Busy Lifestyle

Maddison Birch — Tue, 23 May 2023 19:23:07 GMT

10 Ways to Encourage a Healthy Work-Life Balance for Employees

Yuan Chao — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:30:59 GMT

Striking that perfect balance between career and family has always been a challenge for American workers. Our schedules are getting busier than ever before, which often causes our work or our personal lives to suffer.

Work-life balance involves juggling workplace stress with the daily pressures of family, friends, and self. Modern employees demand greater control over their lives and a bigger say in the structure of their jobs. According to a recent Business Information Review publication, “The search for work-life balance is a process in which people seek to change things in accordance with changes in their own priorities, physical, psychological or both, and these can be triggered in their turn by factors such as: age; changes in working conditions; the demands of new technology; and poor management.”

Why Work-Life Balance is Important

When employees feel a greater sense of control and ownership over their own lives, they tend to have better relationships with management and are able to leave work issues at work and home issues at home. Balanced employees tend to feel more motivated and less stressed out at work, which thereby increases company productivity and reduces the number of conflicts among coworkers and management.

Companies who gain a reputation for encouraging work-life balance have become very attractive to workers and will draw a valuable pool of candidates for new job openings. These companies also tend to enjoy higher employee retention rates, which results in less time-consuming training, more loyalty, and a higher degree of in-house expertise.

Studies have shown that employees who have a positive work-life balance do a better job at work, so promoting this balance is beneficial to individuals and the company. This is a practical guide for employers who want to promote a healthy work-life balance for their teams.

RE: 10 Ways to Encourage a Healthy Work-Life Balance for Employees

Dakota Oatley — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:35:27 GMT

Thank you for sharing Yuan Chao this is so important to keep in mind!

RE: For a lot of people, the pursuit of a healthy work/life balance seems like an impossible goal.

Yuan Chao — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:29:23 GMT

Maddison Birch agreed!

For a lot of people, the pursuit of a healthy work/life balance seems like an impossible goal.

sara collins — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 12:56:29 GMT

With so many of us torn between juggling heavy workloads, managing relationships and family responsibilities, and squeezing in outside interests, it's no surprise that more than one in four Americans describe themselves as “super stressed.” And that’s not balanced—or healthy.

In our rush to “get it all done” at the office and at home, it’s easy to forget that as our stress levels spike, our productivity plummets. Stress can zap our concentration, make us irritable or depressed, and harm our personal and professional relationships.

Over time, stress also weakens our immune systems, and makes us susceptible to a variety of ailments from colds to backaches to heart disease. The newest research shows that chronic stress can actually double our risk of having a heart attack. That statistic alone is enough

RE: For a lot of people, the pursuit of a healthy work/life balance seems like an impossible goal.

Maddison Birch — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:21:13 GMT

thank you! This is so important to remember!

Give Your Organization a Work-Life Vision

Maddison Birch — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 15:19:28 GMT

More and more companies are acknowledging the importance of work-life balance, at least as far as official policy goes. The Families and Work Institute’s 2014 National Study of Employers finds that, compared to six years ago when it conducted the same survey, several numbers have moved in the right direction:

Employers have continued to increase their provision of options that allow at least some employees to better manage the times and places in which they work. These include occasional flex place (from 50% to 67%); control over breaks (from 84% to 92%); control over overtime hours (from 27% to 45%) and time off during the workday when important needs arise (from 73% to 82%).

So why doesn’t it feel like we’ve made that much progress? Because, unfortunately, policies aren’t worth much in the absence of supporting culture. Research shows that an organization’s work-life culture – all the unwritten yet well understood norms and expectations about how people are supposed to work, and what it means to be a good employee – has enormous power over behavior. Culture is what really defines how much latitude people have in terms of managing their work and non-work demands, whether or not there’s a flextime policy on the books.

For a striking example, think back a year to the sad story of Moritz Erhardt. He was the 21-year-old investment banking intern who died in London, August 15, 2013, after having worked 72 hours straight at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (To be clear, the coroner testified that Erhardt suffered an epileptic seizure, and while exhaustion from the 72-hour work marathon might have triggered it, she could not conclude whether this was so.) When the news broke, a director at the bank commented: “We are used to working with people who are ambitious and want to over-perform.” Fellow employees were more candid about the expectations they faced at work, where it was not uncommon to stay till 3 or 4 am. “If you go home at 11 pm, it is said you are ‘giving up’,” said one. “You have no hope of a job offer.”

Investment banking industry: this is your culture speaking. There is no question that Bank of America Merrill Lynch had work-life policies in place. There is also no question that having those policies didn’t change the reality of the organization

How, then, can business leaders start cultivating a healthier work-life culture? The levers at hand are communications and, more important, personal modeling – both by executives at the top and in the management ranks. For instance, SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg, husband of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, believes that creating a company culture that encourages people to lead full lives is key to his edge in hiring key leaders and retaining top talent. He proves this point by leaving his office every day at 5:30 p.m. Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software, makes sure employees know they can bring their children to work any time they need to. The director of a French electric utility I’ve worked with uses the top 40 managers in his organization as a key work-life pilot group, making sure that they use the work-life policies the company makes available and meet regularly to discuss how they can better support work-life integration.

But as easy and inspiring as it is to cite such examples, it’s surprisingly hard to shift the culture of an existing organization. It takes a high level of consistency in communications, rewards, and executive behaviors over time. To drive all of these in the same, positive direction, I’d suggest you need a work-life vision.

Having a work-life vision means being able to offer an overarching point of view that is compelling to people and provides guidance to their daily behaviors, decisions, and practices. Here’s a work-life vision that might serve you well: The best managers in our organization are the ones who best manage the energy of their teams. Energy is something we can all recognize as a precious resource, which is only valuable in use, yet must not be over-exploited and should not be wasted. In an organization, energy is the essential “human resource” to be channeled – every bit as important as financial resources to success, and often more so.