In today’s world, as businesses are rapidly changing and growing at a faster pace, it has also largely impacted the workplace. Employees are increasingly and continuously juggling their work commitments with their busy home lives. Hence, the concept of work-life balance, which is maintaining the equilibrium between an individual’s personal and professional life, has become a pertinent issue to work on.
Work-Life balance has not only a deep and everlasting impact on employees’ attitudes but also affects organizational effectiveness. Organizations are able to understand that work-life conflict has significant business costs in terms of decreasing turnover rates, low organizational productivity and can also influence the well-being of employees with a lack of engagement, absenteeism, and lack of poor retention levels. According to a survey conducted by Monster.com in the year 2019, it says, ‘60 percent of Indian working professionals rated their current work-life balance average to terrible.’
As the current situation has experienced an increasing number of cutbacks and layoffs in workplaces, a common problem is people tend to spend more hours at work as they are afraid not to fall under this similar situation. It is tempting to rack up those extra hours that might better the chance to maintain their position or to get a raise or promotion, but it will undoubtedly take home life for a toss.
Therefore, to enjoy a loyal and productive workforce employers should offer options like work from home, telephone or video meetings or flexible work schedules. Rather than dividing hours evenly between work and personal life, work-life balance should more focus on having the flexibility to get things done at the office and still having time and energy to enjoy with the loved ones. Not only a supportive manager but here are some ways through which you can achieve a better work-life balance.
Understand your strengths – People try to excel in all things, instead of focusing on your strengths and outsourcing the other can simplify your job. This will also help to work with a team, where different strengths come together a makes the job easier.
Prioritizing – A to-do list is always overflowing with tasks. Still, it needs to get prioritized by urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important and neither urgent nor important. Your overall physical, emotional and mental health should be your foremost concern.
Set a timeline – Creating a timeline of your activities, can prove to be fruitful in the long term. You can chalk down your plans and activities like vacations, work holidays, birthday parties, which will help you to plan your availability on those days.
Tap into technology – In today’s world, you should stop working and let your smartphone work for you. Several brilliant applications can help you to shop groceries, manage your expenses, remind your tasks, provide news alerts, book flight tickets, etc. This will help to make your several jobs more comfortable and quicker and preserve your energy and time for other jobs.
Life outside of work – Last but not least, pull out time for something you love and give it the time it deserves. It will enable you to energize and refresh your mind, and also nurture the creativity which tends to disappear with a monotonous activity.
Implementing such improvements in day-to-day life will also aid in management practices and balance our achievements and enjoyments. A positive work-life balance is essential to enhance self-productivity in both professional and personal lives.