During the pandemic, working people got significantly more family time than they were probably used to. As businesses move more and more back to physical offices, the ability to, say, eat lunch with your spouse in the kitchen is largely gone.
Many people are sure to miss the heightened level of work-life balance they experienced during their remote work days. By trying to recreate some of this flexibility, employees will not only improve their staff’s mental health but may also boost their retention.
What’s Changed?
As businesses move closer and closer to their pre-pandemic normal, it’s important to give a little bit of thought to what has changed in the intervening years. What did working from home give employees that working in an office might not?
Many people found that without the details of office life — prescheduled lunch breaks, meetings, small talk, commutes—they were able to get the same amount of work done in less time. This gave them opportunities to do things that would have been impossible working from an office.
Pick up their kids from school. Hit the gym. Go on a walk with their significant other. They couldn’t gallivant around town all day, but they could carve some time into each day for things that are important to them.
That’s called work-life balance, and it’s an important factor in determining how happy someone will be with their job. And, how likely they will be to want to stick around for it.
Many businesses make the mistake of assuming that compensation is their staff’s primary motivation. Money matters, of course, and if there’s not enough of it, people will inevitably leave. However, statistics continue to show that people are more willing to be flexible about their salary expectations than they are with concerns for personal well-being.
In other words, people want to work in places that make them happy. Below, we take a look at a few ways you can help your employees achieve a healthy work-balance dynamic that will improve employee retention.
Flexibility
In-person, you may not be able to re-create the same level of flexibility that remote work provides. You may consider a split schedule, allowing employees to divide their time as they see fit between their home and business offices.
If this isn’t an option, try your best to incorporate as much flexibility into the schedule as possible. Consider experimenting with shorter work weeks or earlier closing times. Businesses with slightly reduced hours are often shown to be at least as productive as those that stay open for 40+ hours a week.
Why? Most workers will assume a leisurely pace with certain tasks throughout the week, knowing that even if they take their time, they will get it done before they get home. When offices pick up the pace a little bit, employees will as well.
These flexible schedules allow people the opportunity to be at home for things they would have otherwise missed, and they very rarely come at the cost of productivity.
Stress management
Stress as a concept is only just now becoming destigmatized. This isn’t to say that feeling stressed used to be taboo. It is, however, to suggest that historically, stress was an expected product of working life for which no one anticipated relief.
That is finally changing. As the various risks to physical, mental, and emotional health that emerge from stress become increasingly clear, businesses everywhere are working hard to help their staff with stress management.
Start by looking for ways to provide support for stressed-out employees. This could mean specifically training HR to work with staff members on reducing their stress. It could also mean making a point to regularly check in with your staff to make sure they are doing well.
Communication accomplishes several things. First, it is a legitimately effective way to identify problems as they crop up. It also shows your staff that you care about them — another important factor in reducing turnover.
Make it a Cultural Shift
Finally, establishing a healthy work environment is a cultural change that needs to start at the top and radiate downward. It doesn’t do much good to tell your staff they need to have a healthier relationship with work, only to then drive them so hard they have no time for a work-life balance at all.
Striking the right balance between productivity and overworking is hard. Naturally, you need to get things done. But when you push employees too hard, you run the risk of sending them off to a competitor.
Try to remember that work is a marathon, not a sprint. Expect good work, but also allow give your staff enough breathing room to have a rich personal life as well.
