Definitive steps to maintain work-life balance for employees

Organisations must promote such a culture so that employees become more productive and feel a part of the company

Sapience Analytics
Updated: Mar 3, 2016 08:48:35 AM UTC
employees1
Leveraging technology to gain insights into employee work patterns is one way to ensure that employees get corrective feedback on a timely basis

Image: Shutterstock

2015 could well be known as the ‘Year of Work-Life Balance’. Companies and individuals across the globe decided that it was high time to have an open conversation on this topic–the fact that you are reading this tells me that you’re ready for this conversation too!

It’s quite clear today that the baby boomer and the upcoming millennial generation are willing to work hard but are also not willing to compromise on the ‘life’ aspect. What is also a reality is that today we have a global work culture, geographically dispersed teams and an almost insanely competitive business environment. Achieving work-life balance in a topography such as this is daunting. Yet there are organisations out there that have woken up to the fact that if they want to retain a trained and capable workforce, the one key benefit they have to offer is work-life balance.

Today, I would like to share some interesting insights that might help your organisation navigate this path.

The end of the ‘nine to five’ schedule The traditional nine to five work day is undergoing a makeover. Owing to technology penetration into our daily lives, the demands of the millennial generation for greater work-life balance and as a means to retain good knowledge workers, we are already witnessing the rise of telecommuting and flexible working schedules. Employers and organisations who offer flexibility in the workplace will have a higher, more engaged and more productive workforce. Companies such as Apple, American Express, IBM, Teradata, Microsoft, etc are just some of the large organisations who have supported telecommuting and have, in turn, seen an increase in productivity from these employees. A Stanford University study at Chinese travel company CTrip pegged this rise at as much as 13 percent.

Focus on efficient work, not more work
In order to boost work-life balance, organisations have to start focusing on more 'efficient work' and not 'more work'. Managers and team leaders have to recognise that working more doesn’t always translate to working well. Take Britain for example. While Britain has some of the longest working hours in comparison to its neighbouring European countries, most estimates put its productivity to be lower than many nations. Organisations can enable employees to work more efficiently by promoting a culture that encourages proactive feedback, and helps employees identify their productivity hurdles with the help of data-driven insights. Focus on efficiency versus time at work keeps employee morale high and helps them deliver better quality work.

Better work allocation
In my experience, many organisations today rely on little more than sophisticated guesswork when it comes to work allocation. Instead of quantifying work on the basis of what a person should ‘ideally’ be able to complete in the 8 to 9 hours at work, we should look at identifying how much work an individual is ‘actually’ capable of delivering. Taking into account time spent on work versus other activities such as surfing the internet, texting, lunch and coffee breaks becomes as important as quantifying the number of man hours required to finish a particular task. Leveraging technology to gain insights into employee work patterns is one way to ensure that employees get corrective feedback on a timely basis. Along with this, it also helps employers bridge the gap between employee efforts versus expected value. These insights help employees and teams function in a more efficient and harmonious manner and automatically enable work-life balance.

Focus on employee wellness and engagement
Organisations also have to assume greater responsibility towards employee engagement and employee wellness to help them cope with the dynamic challenges of a demanding work environment. Most organisations have realised that stress is a costly malaise to contain and hence have to take measurable steps towards wellness that can foster productivity and increase employee commitment. Identifying stressors at work, whether it is incorrect effort estimates or red tape and bureaucracy, has now become an organisational responsibility.

Have meaningful meetings
Research suggests that there are over 25 million meetings held per day in the US alone and executives feel that more than 67 percent of the meetings are unproductive. The cost of such unproductive meetings is a whopping $37 billion per year. Multitasking during meetings, disengaged remote participants, inefficient meeting planning and structure are some of the key contributors of these unproductive meetings. Clearly having fewer and more focussed and agenda-driven meetings will give employees more time to spend on productive activities that have an actual work impact and eventually also lead to greater work-life balance. Leaders have to restructure meeting policies and ask if hosting a meeting is really essential and explore options that require less time investment from the employees. Further, managers and leaders have to identify who really needs to be present and who can be the optional participants. Finally, there has to be a clear agenda for the meeting to ensure that the meeting is focussed and interactive, and is more than just face-time between managers and team members.

Lead by example
Finally, organisation leaders have to take the onus of work-life balance upon themselves and lead by example. Setting policies that define work hours and following these themselves, responding to only urgent emails post work hours and educating employees to distinguish between the urgent and important are a few things that leadership can do to discourage work exhaustion and skewed work-life balance problems that set in because of technology. When employees see leaders valuing private time, they feel less guilty for prioritising their own. This also removes the fear of being passed over in terms of professional growth because of being serious towards personal commitments.

Achieving balance in work and life is easier said than done. However, once organisations take definitive steps in moving towards a culture that promotes work-life balance, employees not only become more productive but also more invested in their own and the company’s growth. Have you done anything in your own organisation to help your employees achieve balance in their life that has worked well? Please do share your own experience – I am sure there is a lot for all of us to learn!

- By Shirish Deodhar, CEO & Co-Founder, Sapience Analytics

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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