Importance of work life balance

I’ve been reading this week some of the work of Maura Thomas related to work life balance and in particular her views on email.

Maura is an international speaker and trainer on productivity, attention and effectiveness. She was writing in this month’s Harvard Business Review – a must read in my opinion.

I do have concerns that our organisations are becoming swamped by email, including late into the evening and throughout the weekends. This is a sign for me that we have lost, or are losing our perspective on work life balance. This will have dire consequences for our collective wellbeing, organisation performance and our customers. I thought that I would share some of Maura’s views.

Work-life balance is different for everyone. But here are some ways she describes to know when your balance is off. One or two of these resonate with me.

• If you don’t take all of your holiday, or if you work when you’re on holiday
• If you’re never away from email for more than six or eight hours at a time
• If you are generally available to anyone regardless of the day or time
• If you never shut off your phone, or put it in “Do Not Disturb” mode
• If you have no hobbies, or if you can’t remember the last time you engaged in your hobby
• If you usually feel exhausted for no particular reason
• If you’re always intending to exercise, but you never seem to be able to work it into your schedule
• If you go to work when you’re sick
• If you have very few close relationships beyond your immediate family
• If your partner or children often get annoyed by your relationship with your communications device(s)

So what can managers and leaders do?

If you’re a manager or a leader, your actions and behaviour influence the culture. If you choose to refrain from sending late night emails, your staff won’t feel pressured to check their devices. In addition to managing their own behaviours, another way for leaders to correct this problem is to have a frank discussion about what’s expected of staff. If this discussion leads to the conclusion that constant availability is required to meet the goals of our organisation, that’s a corporate issue that we shall need to address.

If the discussion leads to the conclusion that it’s up to employees to set their own boundaries and impose their own limits, then leadership must ensure that the employees have the skills and the tools to do this successfully. Effectively managing all the details of life and work is not a skill taught in schools, and as technology and communication channels proliferate, it’s getting harder and harder. Traditional time management training doesn’t work, so staff development plans need to take these needs into account.

And what can our staff do?

You don’t need to be a manager or leader in our organisation to have influence over your downtime. The fact is, the organisation shouldn’t dictate your work hours—your goals should.

Question your assumptions about being always available. Naturally, it’s human nature to operate based on assumptions­—sometimes assumptions we don’t even realise we’re holding. For example, if some in the organisation seem to be keeping long hours, you might find yourself doing the same, based on the vague belief that if everyone is doing it, you must “have to.” But there is certainly no hard evidence to support the idea that those who are the most available or work the longest hours are the most successful.

Most managers and leaders know that work is demanding, but depend on employees to be able to impose their own balance. I believe that our employees need to understand that regardless of how many hours they work, there will always be more work to do, and the employee is the only one who can set his or her own boundaries.

To be more productive and efficient is to make the best use of the resources available to you. In your quest toward productivity, for yourself or our organisation, don’t neglect the most important resources, which are neither time nor money, but body and mind. When your work precludes physical and emotional well-being, your pursuit of productivity will be destined to fail. And if conventional wisdom now says that constant work is necessary for professional success, I can’t think of a more important time to buck convention.

Speak again soon. For daily updates, discussion, personal opinion, comment or just to connect or keep in touch you can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/drcarltonbrand.

Carlton