How to Create a Culture that Supports Work-Life Balance

An essential step toward employee retention is creating a work culture that promotes work-life balance. It is crucial to note that a workplace with the right work-life balance ensures business success resulting in higher productivity, better employee engagement, and higher returns. Here we discussed useful measures to foster work-life balance and create an employee-first culture.

Live to work or work to live?

Organizations and employees need to take a moment to think about an answer to this critical question. A company with a positive workplace culture values employees for their efforts and actively promotes work-life balance among their employees. It is essential to note that a workplace with the right work-life balance ensures business success resulting in higher productivity, better employee engagement, and higher returns.

A company can achieve optimum productivity by paying attention to its employees’ wellbeing. Employees who have a perfect work-life balance experience less stress, are usually more motivated, and gain a greater sense of well-being. A balanced life means carving out appropriate times for professional and personal life. After all, both are equally important in our life.

Here are some useful measures that employers can adopt to foster work-life balance for their employees and create an employee-first culture.

Offer remote work, and flexible timing – Many employees worldwide emphasize flexibility and remote work facility as most important to maintain work-life balance. Indeed, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has revealed to employers worldwide that working remotely from home with flexible timing increases productivity almost 10x times. Managers should utilize digital communication and conferencing facilities to stay connected People always tend to stay back at a company that empowers them to manage their time and helps them achieve excellence in their domain.

See the results and not the hours – Companies worldwide are acknowledging that productivity should be of more importance than when, how, and from where the employees do their work. The manager needs to focus on completing a task and its quality rather than on the hours his team works. This trust and flexibility encourage employees to work longer hours in crucial situations of emergency deliverables.

Taking breaks during the day is necessary – Employees working remotely or from the workplace get so immersed in the work that they forget to take a break. A manager should always take care of the well-being of their employees and encourage them to take a break in between to have a cup of coffee, take a short walk, or anything that relaxes their mind and helps them focus. After all, we should not forget the popular phrase “all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.”

Review workload periodically – A crucial responsibility of the managers is to review the workload of their time from time to time to balance the workload evenly among the whole team. The managers should be familiar with every step of work to get clarity on how much time a task takes. It removes any ambiguity among the management team regarding the duration of the work. Managers need to communicate with their team regularly through maybe short stand-up meetings to measure the workload of each member.

Encourage volunteering and give time for that – Millenials are interested in contributing to a worthy cause while working or looking for employment. Research shows that the teenagers now and twenty-somethings are confident, liberal, and open to change. However, wanting to do good or give back to society is not only limited to the current generation. The managers should encourage their team to volunteer in different Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives and give time for

Support the parents in the workplace – It is common for companies to lose great talents because of their inability to support their childcare needs. Additionally, it is especially applicable for the mothers who usually take the major responsibility of rearing a child. Nowadays, men also want to spend more time with their children to enjoy their kids’ childhoods. They don’t want to lose the chance to be in their kids’ life just because they can’t balance their work and life.

Encourage vacation – Companies should acknowledge that everyone needs a vacation once or twice a year to rejuvenate their minds and come back with fresh energy to overcome work-life challenges. Managers should encourage their team to go

on vacation to “recharge their batteries.” After a time off to relax and clear their heads from the pressures and challenges of the workplace, employees generally return more motivated and productive, with a new level of commitment.

To sum it up, it is essential to encourage a healthy work-life balance for a business to succeed and grow. Nowadays, organizations acknowledge the importance of fostering a people-first culture and hence take measures to promote work-life balance. After all, in the words of Richard Branson, take care of your employees, so they take care of your customers.