Employees are always going to have essential commitments outside of work. If you want to boost productivity and employee engagement, managers must set an excellent example regarding work-life balance. It can also be the key to recruiting better candidates because 72% consider work-life balance before accepting a job offer. Creating family-friendly policies might be an excellent place to start, but they usually fall short on their own. Instead, try combining better approaches with some of these proactive strategies to reduce work-life conflicts further.
Train Supervisors to be Supportive
It’s no coincidence that a majority of healthy work environments always have supportive managers too. It starts with hiring emotionally intelligent people that will become positive role models and can solve problems creatively. Then, you can train managers to help even more by educating and encouraging employees to use family-friendly policies to improve work-life balance. Always support employees in their non-work activities because they will build new skills sets that can be used on the job.
Promote a Supportive Company Culture
An effective way to reduce work-family conflict is to support both men and women taking family leave. For example, a growing number of businesses are offering paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers now. Setting an excellent work-life balance example should start at the top. From leaving the office at 5:30 every day to have dinner with their families to taking two months of paternity leave, some of the world’s most prominent CEOs take advantage of their policies. Creating Employee Resource Groups for working parents can be effective as well.
Measure Employee Well-Being
Although it can be challenging to determine how healthy a work environment is, some common signs of employee well-being are looking for. The first one is when they feel recognized and valued for their contributions. This stems from matching people’s skills to the correct positions. The next factor to consider is how much employees are sacrificing to meet their professional goals. Are they being paid relatively to enable some control over work-life balance? Managers also have to be proactive regarding recognizing ongoing career advancement opportunities for employees.
Finally, real change has to start at the individual level for both leaders and employees to improve work-life balance. When leaders begin to value their leisure time being an example, it will spread across the organization. Managers should be trained to support employees to use flexible work policies to rest and learn new skills instead of penalizing them for taking time off. Then, you can focus on promoting ERGs and improving well-being by paying competitive salaries, recognizing outstanding employees, and recruiting empathetic managers.
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