Why get the balance right? Defining work & life balance
Work & Life balance doesn’t necessarily mean fewer hours – it’s important to get the balance right:
• Less than 4% stated that work & life balance was about restricting work to business hours or having rostered days off.
• 46% stated that it was about flexibility of hours worked.
• 39% most valued work close to home or reducing commuting time.
• It was about empowerment over when they worked and where they worked.
• Work satisfaction was closely correlated to life satisfaction.
After 16 years of economic growth, society is moving higher up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Jobs are no longer sought because they meet Maslow’s bottom drivers of survival and security, but rather the top drivers of social needs, self-esteem and self-actualisation.
Get the balance right when it comes to Work & Life balance
An essential today The McCrindle Research study on 3,000 high potential leaders and employees showed that work & life balance is the number 1 factor of job attraction and retention (even above salary).
Comments from the focus groups:
• “Work is an important part of my life – but it is not my life, just a part of it.”
• “If there’s a clash in the work & life balance, life will win!”
Work & life balance is an expectation of today’s job seeker. Life in the 21st Century is increasingly complex with people juggling multiple roles. Therefore they will only stay with a job that offers flexibility. People today don’t segment their life into “work” and “personal” categories but rather different roles often morph and collide.
When they are empowered to choose their work hours, job satisfaction rises dramatically.
At a whole new level today
The demand for work & life balance wasn’t evident even a decade ago. However today the economic times and the demographic times (fewer people in the working age population, decline in supply of labour) have massively empowered employees. Work & Life balance has always been a consideration in a career however never before have employees had the leverage to demand it.
Today we have companies marketing an employer brand and setting forth Employee Value Propositions (EVP’s) in an effort to gain and keep staff. These EVP’s rarely focus on job security or tenure but rather flexibility arrangements and work & life balance factors.
It is important that high potential leaders understand that the empowered employee is the new reality. Today’s skills shortages are only going to grow.
Today for every person of retirement age we have 5 people in the working age population, yet by 2047 for every person of retirement age there will by just 2.4 people of working age.
Not just a demand of Generation Y – but demanded by all
While we think of Generation Y as being demanding employees and wanting a career that will suit their lifestyle, employees of all ages value work & life balance today.
Work & Life Balance is the most influencing factor in job satisfaction across all age groups.
This is a change even as late as the recession of the 1990’s Generation X-ers (and Baby Boomers before them) were grateful to have a job. Now in this economic climate, staff of all ages are more empowered to seek work & life balance.
• 86% stated that as a work priority it was important / very important to them.
• Only 53% were happy with their current work & life balance.
Employers are responding to the clamour for work & life balance because they can’t afford not to. Voluntary turnover is at 14% – an all-time high, and the economy is effectively at full time employment.
In an effort to gain and keep staff, companies are investing money in work & life balance measures to reduce turnover and recruitment costs.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict is normal and to be expected, hence the need for your team to embrace conflict and deal with it in a positive and mature manner. Conflict avoidance does nothing more than draw out the pain – like a stone in your shoe.
The effective manager and leader will encourage diversity within a team. This automatically brings differences in values, opinions, and attitudes towards various situations at work. The easiest way of dealing with this is by showing team members how to shift their paradigms (mental mindset filters) about resolving conflict on general matters, personal matters and task matters. Hence the importance to build and maintain balanced work teams.
Create an environment where your team can reframe the problem and look at the merits and benefits of an idea before discounting and pre-judging. Consider offering statements to the team so that they gain an appreciation of different points of view. This is a great way to build empathy and rapport.
Make sure that you keep egocentric remarks in-check and reinforce the downside consequences of labeling people and categorising tasks. Failure to do so risks creating a perpetual cycle of destruction.
Conflict resolution is about respecting others and maintaining self esteem. Encourage people to feel empowered and personally responsible for their own actions and outcomes.
As a leader, create a solution orientated environment that reinforces good behaviour. Make sure you don’t inadvertently reward bad behaviour by giving in to those people who have learnt to whinge and moan to get what they want.
Managing Change and Innovation
As a leader, it is crucial that teams are flexible and respond quickly to market forces. The best teams are early adopters of innovation initiatives that are rolled out in the workplace. They embrace chaos and thrive on variety and challenge. The effective team leader with assist his or her team to identify risks and be proactive in seeking out the inherent opportunities that arise from change.
During times of change, the need for personal security increases. Make sure that you give your team the resources and tools that they need in order to work effectively. Maintain a high level of communication with your people and respond to questions quickly and succinctly. If you don’t know the answer – find it.
Centres of Influence
It is not only what you know but who you know. As a leader, you will need to encourage your team to maintain positive workplace relationships with people outside their immediate work area.
It is important that they interact and network effectively with people who are likely to be centres of influence on current and future projects.
When you build and maintain balanced work teams, you need to start thinking in terms of serving the internal customer. Reward and recognise people who are making the effort to communicate openly, solve problems, ask questions, and negotiate effectively to resolve differences. As a leader, make sure your door is always open – not in words but in action.
In summary, teams are most effective when members have an understanding of how each other team member works and thinks as they strive towards a common goal. As a manager and leader it is your job to make it happen.
