Balance

Overview

What is balance?

Balance is where there is acceptance of the need for a sense of harmony between the demands of personal life, family and work. This reflects the fact that everyone has multiple roles: as workers, parents, partners, etc. This complexity of roles is enriching and allows fulfillment of individual strengths and responsibilities, but competing responsibilities can lead to role conflict or overload.

An organization with good balance can state:

  • Workers are encourage to take their entitled breaks (lunchtime, sick time, vacation time, earned days off, parental leave, etc.).
  • Workers can reasonably meet the demands of personal life and work.
  • It promotes work-life balance.
  • Workers can talk to their supervisors when they are having trouble keeping balance between their personal life and work.
  • Workers have energy left at the end of most workdays for their personal life.

Why is balance important?

Work environments that recognize the need for work-life balance contribute to workers feeling valued and happier, both at work and at home. Understanding the importance of balance between work and personal life requires greater workplace flexibility. This flexibility helps minimize conflict by allowing workers to carry out tasks necessary in their daily lives. Balance enhances well-being, reduces stress and the possibility that home issues will spill over into work, or vice-versa. This protects physical and psychological health by allowing staff to maintain their concentration, confidence and accountability at work. This translates into enhanced worker commitment, job satisfaction and work performance.

Job stress is on the rise, and workers with higher levels of job stress are more likely to be dissatisfied with work and be absent – either physically or mentally. A primary source of stress is conflict between work and family roles. Health and well-being are undermined when work-family conflict occurs. This imbalance can lead to constant fatigue, bad temper and inability to progress. In turn, this can lead to more stress-related illnesses, such as higher cholesterol, depressive symptoms and overall decreased health. For organizations, the impact included increased costs due to benefit payouts, absenteeism, disability and turnover.

FAQs

  • Have management support and model positive work-life balance.
  • Provide opportunities that promote health and balance (on-site gym/fitness facilities, provision of personal time off, options for unpaid leaves, flexible work schedules, etc.).
  • Offer supports (appropriate technology and resources) for staff who work from home/off-site.

  • Provide information on creating and sustaining a balanced approach to the demands of work and personal life (enhanced resiliency, coping and problem-solving skills, etc.).
  • Provide training to leaders to support both themselves and their team in managing work-life demands.
  • Provide educational opportunities (internal and external) on non-job-related topics (such as attending “lunch-and-learn” sessions on childcare or eldercare issues).

  • Ensure staff is aware of the commitment to balance as being integral to overall health and productivity.
  • Make organizational and community resources (programs and tools) that support work-life balance easily accessible to staff.
  • Support staff who wish to share non-work-related accomplishments (birth of children, major anniversaries, accomplishment of lifelong goals).

  • Provide flexible work arrangements, where possible (compressed work schedules, work from home, virtual conferencing, part-time work, contract opportunities, job sharing, etc.).
  • Provide appropriate support for shift workers (limit split shifts, provide advance notice of shift changes, allow shift trading. etc.).
  • Offer personal and family support for both child and elder care (comprehensive benefits, daycare, fitness facility access, health education, family responsibility leave, etc.).
  • Assess staff feelings on the value of benefits when making decisions concerning these programs (offer flexible/opt-out options).
  • Offer opportunities to earn time off during peak work periods (for use during low workload demand periods).
  • Encourage use of allocated time off.
  • Develop and share guidelines around communication, availability and technology use of (email, phone, etc.) during off-work periods and have leaders model this approach.

Action

Next steps: Helping employees achieve an adequate balance

Objective

A work environment where there is recognition of the need for between the demands of work, family and personal life.

Benefits

  • Greater staff satisfaction and morale
  • Reduced staff stress and burnout
  • Enhanced performance and productivity
  • Reduced absenteeism and disability

Reflection Questions

  • Do issues related to employees’ work-life balance present a greater risk to certain groups of employees (new employees, certain jobs, shift workers, young workers, etc.)?
  • What are your workplace’s strengths in terms of employees’ work-life balance (what do you do well and what should you continue doing)?
  • What could your workplace do to improve in this area (what could you do more of and what could you do less of)?