Maintaining work-life balance boosts employee wellbeing, engagement, productivity, and retention. Let's explore the significance of these aspects and dive into ways you can support your employees.
Do you know why maintaining a work-life balance is essential for employee well-being? A short answer lies in the famous proverb: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
It’s seen that when work starts creeping into an employee's personal life, it interferes with their biological rhythms, interpersonal relationships, and ability to plan for their futures. This, in turn, impacts well-being, the lack of which leads to stress and poor performance.
Trends indicate that employee well-being and work-life balance issues have magnified post-pandemic as employees were allowed to work from home. Although remote work and flexible schedules allow employees to leverage their agency to their advantage and take breaks throughout the day, employees often find that boundaries between work and life are blurred.
How do we address this issue around employees' work-life balance and well-being?
Read on for clarity on what work-life balance and well-being entail. Get clues on actionable strategies to enhance work-life balance and well-being to create a supportive work environment.
"Remember that work and life coexist.
Wellness at work follows you home, and vice versa."
Melissa Steginus, Productivity and Wellness Specialist
Work-life balance is the ideal equilibrium between one's professional and personal life, where one does not disturb the other to the extent it’s realistically possible. Ensuring this balancing act requires one to be able to categorize personal life and job tasks and disconnect without guilt.
Research confirms that
Conversely, the negative impact is almost immediate if this delicate equilibrium is disrupted:
Considering these facts, you must take the lead and ensure work-life balance among employees.
Implement an organizational culture emphasizing work-life balance and well-being by setting communication boundaries. If employees feel disturbed in their personal lives due to their workplace, it impacts their well-being significantly.
France, for example, recognized this. While emphasizing workers' rights, the country implemented the "right to disconnect" policy, which empowers the country’s employees to spend quality time at home and turn off emails after working hours. You can implement such notification-related boundaries in several ways, including
Working hard without being recognized for their efforts can cause resentment among employees. It also hampers overall well-being, reduces motivation and engagement, and impacts retention and performance rates.
As an employer, you must make their achievements feel special to enhance their well-being and morale. This is possible by
Overloading employees with more work or information than they can handle causes health problems, mental stress, and fatigue and triggers emotional instability. In addition, it results in poor decision-making and reduced performance - all of which are outcomes of poor work-life balance and well-being. To address this, you can
A lack of work-life balance causes burnout and stress, which leads to both physical and mental health issues. This impacts employee well-being significantly, and you can address it by
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(DEI) policies in the workplace are fundamentally connected to employee well-being. DEI promotes productivity, fosters physical and mental health, and helps achieve work-life balance. Interestingly, more than 33% of workers claimed they would change jobs to join a more inclusive team as it impacts their well-being.
To enhance well-being organization-wide,
A lack of respect for work-life boundaries hampers employee well-being. 57% of employees who quit voluntarily cited disrespect as the primary reason for their resignation. While the subjective perception of respect cannot be controlled, you can do certain things to show that you care and win employees’ trust:
It's easy to miss what's important and valuable for your employees personally while focusing on the business side of things. This can lead to unintended actions that result in poor well-being or balance. To address this:
Ensuring employee well-being and work-life balance is critical to keeping your workforce in good health and spirits, alongside ensuring they operate at peak productivity. This, in turn, requires focusing on several factors ranging from measured, respectful, and timely communication to initiatives promoting DEI alongside physical and mental well-being at work.
With working styles drastically changing in recent years, implementing the required boundaries and strategies prioritizing employee well-being and work-life balance requires going beyond legacy approaches. A multi-pronged approach is needed to ensure the combination of in-office, remote, and frontline workers’ needs are addressed.
A simple way to implement strategies for this balancing act is by using appropriate modern technology that ties the organization’s communication together. You can use feature-rich internal communication apps that allow fostering communication to create a culture of well-being, trust, and mutual respect while supercharging efficiency. In large organizations, such technology can also make it simple to recognize signs of plummeting well-being and work-life balance that may get overlooked otherwise.
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