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
Carlton
