How to Support a Better Work-Life Balance for Your Employees

While some of this is on your employees to manage for themselves, you also need to give them the tools to successfully separate the professional and personal.

The rise in remote and hybrid working has made this more difficult than ever. With homes and workplaces often being the same, it can be hard for employees to switch off at the end of the day. Some also worry about their reduced visibility, working harder to counteract this. This can lead to burnout, stress, and professional dissatisfaction in the long term.

So, how can you support your employees in creating a healthy balance?

Provide them with dedicated workplace technology

With more people now working from home, many employees have begun using their devices to work from. This can quickly blur the lines between the professional and personal, especially if Slack notifications and work emails are pinging through at all hours of the day and night.

One way to avoid this is by making sure your work-from-home employees have a separate tech to use during the workday. For example, many use their mobiles for work calls. To avoid this, look into supplying them with a dedicated work phone.

While this may sound costly, there are ways to keep the outlay down, such as using prepaid SIM cards. These are cited by ExpressVPN as a tech survival kit essential, alongside power banks, portable Wi-Fi hotspots, and so on. This allows you to cap your monthly outlay and make sure you’re not paying over the odds for costly contracts with extras that go unused.   

Encourage breaks

It’s also important to iterate your work-from-home policy – and to remind employees that they’re allowed to take some time away from their screens. Breaks should be actively encouraged to avoid burnout, along with daily walks and exercise.

If employees could do with some time out during the day – for example, to collect children from school or walk the family dog – be accommodating of this. Make it clear that as long as their performance doesn’t drop off, you’re willing to be flexible and support whatever approach suits the individual.

Focus on productivity rather than time in front of a screen

This one goes for your office as well as homeworkers. Having to commit to sitting in front of a screen for eight hours a day isn’t always healthy, either physically or mentally, and some people struggle with this routine.

So, how can you help them? The answer might lie in focusing on productivity rather than the number of hours spent slogging away. Some people work far better in sprints and can achieve more when they spend less time in front of a screen. Give them a degree of autonomy over their working day, and you may find that they’re not only happier with their work-life balance but also see an uplift in performance.

When it comes to improving work-life balance for your employees, there are lots of ways you can support this. Isn’t it time you started putting them into practice?