Post on 21-Jan-2015
description
Finding Your Work-‐Life Balance… Your Middle Way
Key Points • Scoring your work-‐life balance…are you happy? • How to Find Your Work-‐Life Balance…. Your Middle Way • Managing work-‐life balance for your team The promise of work-‐life balance seems like the new norm in the business world today, especially in how companies are recruiting/attracting new employees and how the general population searches for the company that best fits their needs. Many job seekers look for the ideal “Best Company To Work For”, but today that ideal is quickly becoming synonymous with “Best Company For Work-‐Life Balance”. Best example of this is Google (ranked #1 and #7 respectively), who exemplifies what it means to offer work-‐life balance. Every company defines work-‐life balance differently, but today’s top companies are really talking about benefits, the availability (transportation, free food and drinks, working remotely) and the uniqueness (daycare, dry cleaning, on-‐site healthcare). I recently discovered a company that truly embodies the ideal of work-‐life balance if exercise and fitness are what you are in to: unplugged vacations meaning no calls from the office or being CC’d on emails when you are using vacation days, 1.5-‐hour lunches if want to do a spin class or catch a pick-‐up game at the gym, ability to earn extra vacation days by competing in health challenges, and 100% paid health care. Work-‐life balance means something different for everyone. The most important thing for you to do is define your own work-‐life standard… I mean really sit down and make a list of the things that really matter to you… discuss the list with your family/spouse/significant other and identify how to make that list a reality. If you are having trouble building your own list, let me get you started with some common requests. 1. Game Rooms (pool, darts, foosball, arcade games) 2. Food (free doughnuts/pizza/breakfast, on-‐site food trucks)
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3. Physical Health (on-‐site yoga/Pilates/crossfit, on-‐site gyms, race enrollments, acupuncture, smoking cessation and weight management programs)
4. Mental Health (company paid boxing classes, singing lessons, dancing lessons, stand-‐up comedy classes)
5. Time Off (paid or sponsored vacations, 4-‐day work weeks, paid maternity/paternity leave, paid sabbaticals)
6. Company Retreats (happy hours, celebratory vacations) 7. Freebies (Netflix subscriptions, tickets to sporting games, customized shoes, free
spa services, babysitting, on-‐site kindergarten, technology products, private concierge, free flights)
Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kateharrison/2014/02/19/the-‐most-‐popular-‐employee-‐perks-‐of-‐2014/ http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-‐with-‐awesome-‐perks-‐payscale-‐2013-‐1?op=1
1) Scoring your work-‐life balance…are you happy? Now that you have an idea of the what to look for and what is being offered out there, let’s start by thinking about the actual hours you put into your work week. Off the top of our head, do you have a strong work-‐life balance? In 2009 on cnn.com/living, there was a great article that had a work-‐life balance calculator that
easily calculated work time vs. personal time. I feel that this is (at it’s simplest) a great way to get general view of your average week. If you don’t want to click on the link and try out the calculator, I have a simplified version of that. Below is a set of questions that will help gauge (at a high level) whether you have work-‐life balance.
Answer simply YES or NO to each of the 7 questions below 1. You can’t remember the last time you went on vacation. Your last long weekend
was because of a forced work holiday like Labor Day, Christmas or New Years. 2. You have abandoned any hobby that you used to have. You live to work. 3. Because of the level of stress at work, you have become short-‐tempered and tend
to easily lose your temper on the little things. 4. You know/feel that you are out of shape but feel that there is never enough time
to exercise before or after work. So then you choose just not to exercise. 5. You take more pride in getting recognized at work than praise at home from
friends or family. 6. While at work, you feel that you are constantly overwhelmed by projects and
that there is never a moment to relax. You are working on your commute, every minute at the office and on your commute home. Plus, you feel that you have to quickly glance at your emails at night…. just in case. You cannot disconnect.
7. On your lunch break, you feel that you have no time to relax and must keep
working. You tend to eat lunch at your desk everyday. If you answered YES to all 7 questions: You are a workaholic and have no work-‐life balance. Basically, you have no personal life. If you answered YES to at least 4 of the 7 questions: Then work still controls your life but there is still hope for you. If you answered YES to at least 1 and 3 questions: You are starting to show signs of a being a workaholic. Act fast before it’s too late. If you answered NO to all 7 questions: Then you are in control of your work-‐life balance. Be proud of yourself.
2) How to Find Your Work-‐Life Balance…. Your Middle Way A healthy work-‐life balance is different for everyone. Before you can find your balance, it is best to understand the meaning and origin of it. The work-‐life balance concept was first introduced in the UK in the late 1970’s and then in the US in 1986.1 Studies have shown that this was an inevitable evolution in the workplace because of the advancement of technology and the increased connectedness of an employee to his/her job. Because employees are now able to stay connected all day/night and on weekends because of email, cell phones, and other technologies that keep us connected to work. By finding your personal work-‐life balance, I personally feel that it is more than just taking actions to give you more personal time in the day, but taking a spiritual and philosophical approach to it. This way, you are not only physically making a change but also making a change to your demeanor and way of life. A core philosophy of Buddhism called the Middle Way, best exemplifies this…. the simplest translation of this is that you should never live in extremes. Find a middle state of being that works best for you. Everyone’s Middle Way is different; find what works best for you. You do this by sacrificing and weighing the values or work life vs. personal life. If Buddhism is not for you, reference:
• Jewish physician and philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135–1204) • Qur’an verse 143:chapter 2 • Ecclesiastes 4:4-‐5:7
If the spiritual approach seems not your approach, then I recommend you find someone that lives the balance that you are looking for, talk to them and find out how they found their work-‐life balance… their Middle Way. To get started, here is a simple approach to finding your ideal state of work-‐life balance.
1. Build a work-‐life balance approach plan, give yourself a timeline to developing one and a goal to what you want to accomplish from it
2. Once you have your approach plan, run tests to validate that it makes you happy, but be careful to not put your job/family life at risk
3. Identify where you are now, and where do you want to be in 1 year, then where do you want to be in 3 to 5 years (be sure that this allows you to have the personal life you want)
4. Identify any resources/family or friend supporter(s) that will help you achieve your goals and just go for it
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work–life_balance
3) Managing work-‐life balance for your team As a team manager, you are not only responsible for the production/output of your team but also their happiness in the workplace. If you have someone on your team that feels like they are overworked and unhappy… it may be because you are not managing work-‐life balance for your team. A happy team is a productive team. Remember that work-‐life balance is one of the keys to team retention. There is not one specific way to approach this or tackle this… you know your team better than anyone else. Find what works best for your team and do the right thing. In Conclusion: In life, sometimes you need to run and sometimes you need to walk… meaning there are times when you need to put in the extra hours at work everyday to make that career jump and get that needed promotion and there are times when you need to focus on family and home life and not answer work emails at 10pm. You need to be aware of what state you are in and be ready to adjust as life throws you a curve ball. Stay alert and be open to change. Visit our blog at http://www.artofthewingman.com