Each one of us has a dream shaping his professional life. Maybe your dream is to be a successful manager, to build your own private business or even to be CEO for the most successful company in the world. Our dreams are always related to success. From our early childhood, we have been taught that the way to success is to study hard, to work hard, to work a lot, and to spend more time working, but no one told us that the master key to success is to LIVE happily.
In a country like Egypt, everything that surrounds us is forcing us to get involved more and more in work; just in work and to ignore our own life. I don’t mean the unstable political and economic conditions, I mean the social culture that links being successful to getting more money, and getting more money to working more hours and so on. This social culture has been reflected in a strong anti-life business culture.
Many articles discussed how you can achieve work-life balance in order to protect yourself from burning out, and to increase your performance at work and get better life. Other articles have showed us how huge entities worldwide enhance the idea of work-life balance and pay more attention toward achieving it, but the question that is usually asked is: what is the role of the HR employee in achieving work-life balance in a company that is against it?
Here is a list of very simple tips that may guide you as a Human Resources Employee to help other employees achieve work-life balance in such a strong negative business culture without costing your company a lot:
Set priorities:
Teach supervisors and line managers to set priorities for all work. When priorities are unclear, employees tend to overwork because they think that everything must get done at once. Setting priorities allows workers to schedule tasks over a reasonable period of time.
Train employees on time management, stress management and emotional intelligence:
Train employees on using time management schedules in order to get the best use of their time, train them how to realize their needs and emotions, their effect of them, and how to manage them.
Train employees on empathizing; It’s impossible to identify a need or a problem without the ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes.
Take very short breaks during the working hours:
Permit your employees to take short breaks during their normal working hours. They can use these hours to eat snacks, take a quick nap, pray, meditate or even answer a personal call. Taking breaks doesn’t mean wasting time.
Taking a moment to become more mindful is an important benefit. Over the last few years, a large number of studies have confirmed that the practice of mindfulness leads to an enhanced performance, an improved sense of well-being, less stress and burnout, and an increased ability to remain calm in difficult work situations.
Don’t call your employees at their day offs or after daily work time:
Help supervisors and line managers to understand the importance of respecting the privacy of their employees in their non-work time. Help them not to contact the employees for work at this time unless for emergency, and to prioritize using email, work mobile, and personal mobile according to the emergency.
Leave work at work and home at home:
Train your employees to make the psychological separation between work problems and personal problems.
Give your employees the chance to see the world:
Give your employees offers to travel around the world, and afford the burden of paying the whole trips’ costs. You can divide the money into premiums and deduct them from their salaries.
Apply flextime and flexible work place policy:
Flextime is one of the most useful tools in helping workers achieve a good work-life balance. Line managers should identify which jobs can be achieved under flextime and flexible work place policies.
Encourage employees to participate in the company’s sportive championships:
Prepare sportive championships for any loved sport like football. Encourage employees to participate in it, and bring a silver cup to be the motivator. This matter will reduce stress, enhance teamwork spirit, strengthen the desire for competition, improve performance and it will be followed by productivity.
Finally; I want you to answer this question:
“When you are gone would you rather have your gravestone say, ‘He never missed a meeting’, or one that says, ‘He was a great father?’” Steve Blank.
By: Dina Marei
Photography: Mohamed Samir Hassan
EDITOR: Nada Zeyada