As an entertaining leadership speaker and trainer, I’m passionate about bringing awareness to the importance of work-life balance for long term success. Leading edge companies aren’t afraid to remove the corporate thumb off employees heads and initiate a whole life culture. They understand work-life balance increases overall well-being and that increases their bottom line! In this article I will address what work-life balance is and why companies must implement it now. So as M.C. Hammer sings lets “break it down”.
Businessdirectory.com defines work-life balance as a comfortable state of equilibrium achieved between an employee’s primary priorities of their employment positions and their private lifestyle.
The short version – Employers helping workers
cope better with the competing demands of work and family.
Is it really that important? Yes! Actually the word is “Very” according to Fortune magazine’s annual rankings of the World’s Most Admired Companies. Forty-nine percent of respondents from organizations ranked in the top three in their industries reported that addressing work-life balance issues is a “top priority” if your going to balance the human capital challenge in the upcoming years.
Want a few numbers to see if work-life balance actually affects your bottom line? Organizations that are perceived to not support work-life balance will lose 1 in 4 or 27% of their key talent and peak performers within the next two years. Balance those numbers against your competitors!
Leaders must get outside the box of work, work, work and help employees feel more positive about accomplishing challenging assignments while designing a work environment and culture to help decrease stress and allow more time for personal responsibilities.
What’s the payoff for employers? Happy and engaged employees that are free to be creative, more innovative and ignite a vibe of “I love my life and job” throughout the entire workforce. They also are more likely to develop collaborative cohesive teams.
[gn_note color=”#FFCC00″]3 effective strategies to help employees obtain work-life balance and ignite sustainable success.[/gn_note]- Develop open communication styles that allow employees to accomplish tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. Confusion creates stress and procrastination.
- Define projects with a clear and compelling purpose, so employees feel good about the time they are away from family working on a project.
- Empower your employees to make the decisions necessary to accomplish their projects and goals without the stress of endless time wasting meetings and emails.
Work-life balance isn’t easy to obtain and it takes conscious authentic leaders to make it happen but the bottom line is, work-life balance is smart business that boosts your employee’s moral and YOUR bottom line!