Creating Work-Life Balance Policies That Can Really Work

Top 3 ideas

In today’s tech-driven work environments achieving work-life balance is one of the easiest and one of the most challenging things to pull off. It is easy because the concept of “balance” is intuitive and because there is an abundance of scientific research data demonstrating that a lack of balance can lead to employees experiencing an increase in stress, which in turn, is linked to illness, days off, health insurance claims, burnout and increased turnover. So, we all get it; humans need balance in their lives or they will get sick, and in the world of work, that can lead to a myriad of other unwanted outcomes.

However, even though work-life balance (WLB) for employees is not a hard sell for HR professionals to make to management, it can be an uphill battle to actually implement such policies. Even the most enlightened leaders will be unable to implement work-life balance policies without a set of strong, clear boundaries outlined. For example, ensuring that employees have balance in their work and private lives is really a lost cause when incoming emails can pile up to 100 or more in just one workday.  

As I hear regularly when consulting with employees and executives alike, this all too common scenario requires that if employees are to have enough time and opportunity during work hours to do their jobs, they must go through their email inbox every evening and throughout the weekend. Even the most well-intentioned leaders will be unable to implement work-life balance policies without a set of strong, clear boundaries.

To this end, here are some ideas to consider when working out details of implementable WLB policies:

1. Exercise Restraint [ExR]

All employees need to exercise restraint before sending emails. Typing out emails is easy. So easy, in fact, that U.S. workers have become overwhelmed with them. WLB policies should ask employees to carefully evaluate whether the email message is essential before hitting the ‘send’ button. If we all imagined we are working in the days before email, we would have to compose, type, edit, and print off a memo, make copies, and then send it out to be distributed to recipients (sometimes needing to get approval first!). That was a lot of effort. So back in the days before email, people thought long and hard about whether a message was critical enough to warrant sending a memo out, or whether it could wait until there was a fact-to-face meeting with the intended recipients.

2. Limit Work to Business Hours [LBH]

Employees and managers should respect one another’s private space, time and personal lives by limiting work-related emails, calls and text messages to employees’ scheduled work hours. Respecting the end of employees’ scheduled work hours as a definitive marker for when employees’ personal lives take precedence will go a long way in helping to create and maintain a work-life balance. Put plainly, employees’ normal, scheduled workdays should be seen as the standard and not some amorphous period that can drift on endlessly. With the exception of essential personnel needed on special projects, the majority of employees should not feel like they are missing out or being kept out of the loop unless they continue checking for messages throughout their personal and family time. This can be achieved by having a clearly stated policy that the end of scheduled work hours signifies employees’ personal time and that personal space should be respected by limiting exchanges to the employees’ normal working hours.  

3. Respect Private Time [RPT]

Managers must respect employees’ personal time by limiting essential meetings to employees’ normal work hours. This respect includes permitting employees the ability to take a full lunch break to nourish their bodies and clear their heads, as well as disallowing the use of open space appearing on shared calendars that are reserved for lunchtime or the time before or after employees’ normal business working hours, to schedule meetings. Additionally, managers who schedule activities such as dinners, parties, happy hour and other events done after work hours should make it clear that attendance is optional and that employees need not worry they will suffer reprisal if they do not attend. Respecting employees’ private time will go a long way in helping them achieve and maintain the balance between work and private life that is so essential to overall health and well-being.

By creating clear guidelines and boundaries for leaders to follow, it not only helps ensure these policies can be implemented, but will set the precedence for WLB to become SOP at your organization.