The most important part of a successful and smooth-running company is its people. A company can’t run without cooperation, willingness, and a genuine drive for success. To drive this, employees must feel valued and understand the company mission and their impact. Ultimately, ensuring the prioritisation of well-being will be the best strategy for your company’s success.
Employers need to take responsibility for their employees’ well-being and promote a healthy work-life balance which will come in different forms. Here are the workplace practices we recommend you implement to guarantee employee prioritisation.
Offer Flexibility and remote working styles
Firstly, post-COVID, employees value being able to work from anywhere with the possibility of flexibility. Flexible working provides the ability to manage day-to-day life e.g. pick up the kids or run to the doctors, all knowing their employer trusts that they’ll get the job done.
On the other hand, office-based working comes with restrictions and will likely deter current and future employees. Now we’ve grown accustomed to hybrid/remote working, it will be hard to gain buy-in for fully office-based working. Compensation will be needed for the lack of flexibility.
It seems that a hybrid approach is the most popular option as there is the social aspect of being in an office 2/3 days a week where they can make meaningful relationships with their colleagues and then 2/3 days working from home where they have more flexibility with their personal life.
Focus on productivity rather than hours
This is becoming increasingly popular, and in the same vein of flexibility, encouraging managers to focus on quality and completion of work rather than hours, will emphasise trust and reduce pressure on teams.
Say an employee has worked an extra 3 hours at the end of the day to finish an urgent task, they get to take the same hours off at the end of the week or get TOIL accrual to make up for it.
Furthermore, time management is key for both you and your employees. In hybrid/remote working, it’s easy to assume everyone is available for a quick chat or unplanned meetings, especially with video conferencing tools such as Microsoft Teams where you can see if someone is online/available. Therefore, it’s important to include focus times, disturbance-free periods and breaks. This way, you can work on high-priority tasks and deadlines and take a breather from your screen when you need it. These combined, will help create a healthy and efficient day-to-day schedule, a positive work-life dynamic, optimal working and reduce the risk of burn-out which will lead to success in your role.
Regularly Review Workload
Being overworked or not having the time for a balanced personal life will likely lead to poor performance. As a manager, you must review workloads and allocate duties accordingly to employees, ensuring they have achievable tasks. Remind them to communicate if they have reached capacity so you can shuffle priorities to alleviate strain and the risk of burnout. It’s important to understand and stay on top of your team’s stress levels and busyness.
Setting clear expectations and boundaries
Objectives need to be clearly communicated whether personal, strategic or business. Employees will feel more motivated if they understand how their works impact their personal growth, team goals and overall company success.
Providing regular check-ins and feedback on progress, and discussing areas they need to work on for professional development will encourage them to succeed in their role.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all all type of thing
A crucial thing to remember is that each individual in your team will require different levels of flexibility, some more than others. They will have different needs, requirements and home-life situations so may enjoy or prefer a different work structure e.g. normal work times or starting and finishing later, or vice versa. Others may not mind working extended hours if it means they can switch off when get home. As a manager, where possible, you should try to personalise the workday to best suit the person and their needs. There are plenty of ways to make compromises that won’t affect your business and instead prioritise the needs of your team.
Benefits & Perks
Another way of sustaining a healthy work-life balance is offering a range of services that can save your employees time and money, help alleviate stress, and support their professional development. If you give back to your employees, they’ll feel valued and therefore driven.
These perks and benefits could come in many forms:
Health care plan – which would include mental health services.
Dental care plan
Subsidised gym membership
Tax guidance & support
Counselling services
Study Support
Paid training program
Social & Community Engagement
Supporting a healthy work-life balance and highlighting well-being can be done by emphasising your company’s social life and bonding. Forming strong relationships within your team will foster a better, more wholesome work environment. This can be done within or outside of work hours. Whether after-work drinks, team lunches, lunch clubs, holiday incentives or friendly work games/challenges, it’s important to create a fun dynamic, where employees can collaborate and engage with their teams and other teams. It’s also important to celebrate the wins and make sure they know they are appreciated.
Feedback is king
Ultimately, the best thing you can do for your well-being is go straight to the source. Talk to your employees and ask for feedback. See what could be different and what they might like to see to improve your work environment, whether directly checking in regularly, sending out pulse surveys or even creating an employee forum. Employee forums are a great way of getting employees involved with each other and giving them a safe space to voice their opinions, come up with ideas, plan events, and set up initiatives that can improve the workplace.
To summarise:
By implementing these into your work-life strategy, you can offer your employees the optimal work environment. They’ll be happier and so will you, giving you improved employee, attraction, retention, and satisfaction. You will be able to create the most supportive and balanced workplace that will benefit your employees and your company.
At IN2 Consult we have industry insight on what candidates are looking for in and from a company. We can support you in your recruitment process by providing tips and advice on benefits, perks, and working style and suggesting what you could offer candidates to beat your competition. In a candidate-led market, you need to prioritise candidate needs and offer the best compensation package and we can provide the information to help you make those informed decisions.
Get in touch to find out how we can support you with your hiring needs.