The Benefits of Work-Life Balance

Introduction

As leaders there are many traits and abilities we must be proficient in to effectively lead high performance teams. One of the most important is having the understanding that the people are your most important asset and without them nothing will ever be successful. With that statement in mind; employee retention is a crucial part of being a successful leader, but being able to retain people is a lot harder than just saying I want to the retain people in the organization. Most people would think “Oh that’s an easy fix; just give them more money”.

To many leaders surprised most people are not unhappy with the amount of money they make, so a leader must ask; what is the reason people would want to leave? To answer that question a leader must look at the individuals and not the organization as a whole; more than likely the leader will realize the most common reason why people leave an organization is because of an uneven work-life balance. During the course of this paper I will summarize several ways a leader can improve the organizations work-life balance as well as the benefits of having a good work-life balance program.

Work-life balance Improvement

In order for work-life balancing improvements to occur; a leader’s first step should be to talk to the employees. The employees will usually have good ideas that can be implemented to help achieve a good work-life balance. Not only will this greatly assist in finding out what aspects of work-life balance mean the most to the employees, but it will also give the employees a sense of truly being part of the organization and show them they have the ability to help shape what organizational changes occur.

Some of the most common programs a leader can implement within an organization are as follows: The first is programs that promote physical fitness, whether it is challenging employees to walk so far a day or to at least visit the organizations gym several days a week. The next program is one that brings groups of employees together with similar interest to go to events or conduct certain activities. Next would be a program that implements a tele-work policy so employees are able to stay at home with a sick family member or wait on the cable installer. This would allow the employee to take care of personal matters while still contributing to the organization. However, a leader shouldn’t limit themselves to the few common work-life balance programs that have been listed above; there are many more that can be very beneficial to an organization and its workforce.

Work-life balance Benefits

Once a leader is able to achieve a good work-life balance they should start to see an increase in productivity by their employees. As the saying goes “A happy worker bee is a productive worker bee”.