Work and life balance, Advantages in order to achieve this within your company
Achieving a work and life balance is a problem that comes from the old times and still to this day, causes real headaches to millions of people around the world.
Originally, the issue of getting a work and life balance is highlighted by the incorporation of women into the labour market. In the old times, the woman was the one who used to take care of the family; but when they entered the labour market, a conflict was raised between the indisputable and indispensable right of women to work and the needs of the family, which did not disappear, and men could not take care of these needs due to work.
Today, the problem is also observed from a personal point of view. There are a large number of stressful jobs, which often take place in large cities where travelling means increasing the amount of time spent on working hours. This means a drastic reduction in time that is available for other things in life, such as enjoying hobbies, friends or family. Today, we can say for sure that nearly none of the workers do the rule 8-8-8 (8 hours to work – 8 hours to rest – 8 hours for leisure).
It does not matter whether or not you have a family, you may have seen this scene at least once; at the entrance of a school, a mother – or a father – quickly kisses the son or daughter goodbye, while patting him or her on the back to run to school. Then straight away the mother rushes off so that she is not late for work.
If you continue watching this scene, you would probably see the struggling mother looking at her cell phone’s watch repeatedly as she gets stressed out in a traffic jam. Those are the difficulties of modern life.
These problems to achieve work and life balance cause all kinds of economic and family damages, as well as loads of stress. If you are a businessman or the boss of the company, encouraging a work and life balance for your workers, can bring multiple advantages for your business. Do you want to see some?
ADVANTAGES OF WORK AND LIFE BALANCE
– The productivity increases.
Encouraging a work and life balance improves people’s moods and reduces stress, which leads to a better performance. In addition, this balance also improves concentration at work. Think of the mother who has left her child in school. She is probably thinking if the grandfather has arrived in time to pick her son up. She may even have to leave early enough to do so, which means loss of performance.
– Cost savings.
Encouraging some measures, such as flexible hours or teleworking, can bring interesting advantages. Both, the need of a workplace and some expenses like electricity, for example, could be reduced, which means a lot of savings. In addition, by offering non-economic incentives to workers, you could adjust wages a little bit.
– Your company image improves.
If your people are comfortable within your company because there is a work and life balance, they will not only have a better valuation of their job, but they will pass that positive mood on to the clients. Even your workers’ relatives – who will also be favoured by this work and life balance – could speak well of your company.
– Your human resources department will thank you.
Establishing measures in order to improve work and life balance will greatly expand the number of candidates that are keen to enter your company. Working with you will be something more coveted, and that will mean more possibilities to opt for the most qualified workers.
In addition, your company will be more valued so that, the rotation will decrease, so you will not have to be continuously hiring and forming new employees.
– Work absenteeism is reduced.
Imagine that that mother we talked about earlier has not taken her son to school, because the poor child is sick and suffers a fever of 40.5º. If within your company there are no measures that encourage a work and life balance, that mother will probably have to stay with the child at home which means taking a day off.
SOME WAYS TO ACHIEVE A WORK AND LIFE BALANCE
Now that you are already convinced (we hope so!) about how convenient it is to facilitate a work and life balance within your company, here we show you some ways to achieve this.
– Flexible working hours.
Probably the most important measure of all. Decisions such as facilitating the reduction or accommodation of schedules, or encouraging teleworking, can cause a lot of benefits. Obviously, the job should be able to offer such possibilities (it is difficult to telework as a fishmonger or as a chicken farmer). In addition, you must think that you can always establish partial solutions, such as facilitating teleworking when necessary, and not every day.
– It offers on-site solutions.
It’s not about turning your workplace into a kindergarten (or in a way, yes, you can enable a small kindergarten or make an agreement with one if you feel it is necessary and if you have the means to do so), but have a waiting area enabled for children or for breastfeeding can be a great help and will be highly valued by your people.
– Offer some kind of help to your workers’ relatives.
From giving away products to extending maternity or paternity leave, this could kind of help could go as well from flexibility to holidays, there are many ways to lend a hand and your workers will appreciate and remember this for a long time.
– Listen to your workers.
Enable a suggestion box (you live in the 21st century, it can be an email), or speak directly to them to find out what they need; they know better than anyone else.
Now that you know some advantages and ways to achieve a work and life balance, you should know eHorus. Why? Ehorus is a program of remote management of systems that can help you with the work and life balance of your workers. Discover what eHorus can offer you.
