One crucial element of a successful business is its people. And as a business owner, you should recognize that taking care of your employees is just as important as organizing your operations. Managing a company is not easy, but it can be lighter if you have productive and motivated people working for you.
An employer must understand his or her employees’ needs for having a 100% work-life balance. Sometimes, you don’t actually need to spend tons of money to keep your employees happy and reduce their stresses.
Curious about how you can provide a healthy work-life balance to your people? Here’s how:
Promote Flexible Working Hours
These days, employees value companies who give them the power to manage their own schedules. They feel trusted and valued, knowing that their employers give them the chance to use their time and energy more efficiently or even finish work early.
Promoting flextime is undeniably an effective way to promote a better work-life balance in your company.
You have multiple options to execute this. You can let your employees work anytime they want, just as long as they complete the weekly hour requirement.
For example, they can work six hours on Monday, 10 hours on Tuesday, etc. Or, you can set no hour requirement at all just as long as the work gets done.
Encourage Time Offs
Encourage team chatter once in a while or coffee breaks for everyone. These are simple yet healthy ways to rest from overwhelming work duties. Make sure that you are also providing enough paid time offs to your employees. These include paid vacation, paid personal days, and paid sick leave.
To implement this efficiently, make sure to create a PTO system that neither you nor your people have to think of accounting for how the breaks were spent. This further eliminates the requirement for extra policies like determining what constitutes a personal day.
Moreover, be sure your managers will honor the employees’ PTO. Unless it’s an emergency, avoid contacting them about projects or tasks that aren’t urgent. Let them have a complete breather, even just for a few days.
Offer Remote Work Option
Any company will always have employees who are already parents. Make it easy for them to find more time to bond with their kids or partners by giving them the option to work at home. Not only that you’re allowing them to create a better working atmosphere for themselves, but you’re also giving them more personal and family time.
In fact, it’s said that employees produce better work when they are given such flexibility.
You can now conveniently execute this by utilizing project management platforms and instant-messaging tools.
This will maintain your team’s communication and allow for real-time project and task monitoring.
Educate About Efficient Work
People often work for long hours and end up burned out because they got so many responsibilities to pay for. There are things like daily expenses, mortgage payments, groceries, car loans, and so on. But while they might be earning money needed to pay all those, their work performance is slowly scaling down.
As an employer, you should know that being productive and working more don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
Working for long hours, in fact, results in lower productivity and damages a person’s morale.
According to Mental Health Foundation, 58% of employees who work long hours feel irritable, 34% feel anxious, and 27% feel depressed.
Educate yourself about the importance of efficient or smart working habits for better performance.
Lead By Example
Finally, make sure that you, your senior leadership team, or your managers are also having a healthy work-life balance. Monitor if they are taking the necessary breaks, leaving the office on time, and not contacting other employees during non-working hours.
Furthermore, be sure that when you or your managers are taking a vacation, you are not responding to work emails or requesting updates on ongoing projects. This sends a powerful message to your people that they can’t completely unplug from work when taking their paid time offs. Remember that every action of senior leaders is observed and imitated by the employees.
You might not be responsible for giving your employees a work-life balance, but you can always assist in making it happen. The tips listed in this article will help you promote a 100% work-life balance in the workplace. Support them throughout the journey, and in turn, they will surely appreciate it and produce better work performance for your business’ success.