Learning To Manage Your Work & Your Life: Balance

WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Learning to
manage your
work & your life
While some believe that work-life balance is achievable. Some think it is a complete
myth. On the whole, work-life balance is all about making those little deliberate
choices about which opportunities to pursue and which to let go. - by Rachna Mukherjee
I
n today's competitive work environment many Current practices
employees put in their best efforts 24x7, going above Employers are turning out to be increasingly aware of
and beyond the call of duty in tasks assigned to implications connected with over-worked employees, for
them. In such cases, however, employees need to example, working and efficiency costs, non-attendance,
be on top of their game at all times and are not able to reliability, responsibility and execution. There are
give adequate time to their personal lives. This topic has numerous reasons why organizations take an interest in
gained tremendous attention over the past few years work-life offset programs, this include high-return on
and is generally referred to a crisis of work overwhelming investment, retention of the employees etc. There is a
personal life that is in need of urgent solution. The rise wide mixture of practices at present being utilized to
of millennials in the workforce today has led to the help representatives accomplish work-life parity.
belief that work- life balance is yet another job perk. A growing number of employers have implemented
Gyms, flexible working hours, comp offs are now a wellness programs or pay for their employees' gym
common sight in almost all leading organizations and membership as part of a benefit package. Some
they are all a part of this concept of work-life balance. companies also invite fitness trainers or yoga instructors
Firstly, let us define work- life balance in order to for interactive sessions to motivate its employees. Health
understand this concept. The phrase work-life balance programs also include, healthy eating habits, stress
implies that one should look for, if not have a right to, management training consisting stretching, yoga,
a personal life that is equal to professional life. I tend counselling, as well as bringing in Registered Massage
to believe that work- life balance is nothing but a myth. Therapists to work.
When you're committed to and passionate about your Human resources policies that can be used to increase
job, putting in the hours isn't as much of a chore. People work-life balance include implementing time off in lieu
who achieve great success in their line of work most of overtime pay arrangements, providing a limited
often like what they do for a living. They don't see it as number of days of paid leave per year for child care,
work, but as a central part of their lives. As much as they elder care or personal problems, or having policies
live and breathe the work that they love, many around weekend and evening use of laptops.
successful people also have families and While achieving the perfect equilibrium of work and
commitments outside of work personal time is a noble goal to strive for, the reality is
that they are equally that few can achieve and sustain it.
dedicated to. All of us are responsible for our own work-life
balance and should ponder upon
40 N October 2015 www.humancapitalonline.com ■

WORK-LIFE BALANCE
these points which can positively impact both your career

and quality of life:
Think about the task at hand: Whenever you start a
new task dedicate some time to figuring out what's
important to you. All of us have 168 hours in hand in
a week and we should know how to utilize that time
doing things that we know are necessary and make us
happy. We need to prioritize tasks and give our personal
and professional lives equal amount of time. You are
going to have to make choices about how you spend
your time.
Take advantage of policies like flexible working hours
and work from home: More companies are beginning to Rachna Mukherjee
see the value of flexible schedules and work Chief HR Officer, Schneider Electric India
arrangements for their employees. If that is available to
you, take advantage of it. Catch a gym or yoga session successful careers and participate in developing and
in the morning, pick your child from school, leave work promoting solutions to the world's energy efficiency
a little earlier sometimes and take care of reports and challenges. When it comes to maintaining work-life
emails later. balance, the organization strongly believes that they can
Make the right choices: Employees cannot excel at address this problem by putting the control of working
all things all the time and have certain strengths and flexibly into the hands of workers after agreeing the
certain weaknesses. This is where you need to set right underlying values and goals.
your priorities. If work is currently your highest priority, Concepts such as BYOD and flexible working hours
your focus and decision-making are based on work. If, are already at practice in our organization and we ensure
however, you determine that your children or caring for that we get the right levels of performance out of our
elderly parents is your highest priority, then your actions staff.
are weighted more heavily towards life outside of work. The true secret of work-life balance is that spending
Let your managers know your boundaries: Multi more time checking more emails does not make you
tasking and excelling at different things is a good thing more important or more valuable as an asset to your
but that does not mean that you cannot have any company and clients. To borrow the old saying, it's not
boundaries. It is very easy for managers to point out the amount of days in your work, it's the amount of
that your peers are working for long hours but you are work in your days.
not. Just because people are working those long hours Employers should no doubt encourage a professional
does not mean they are any more productive than work ethics where punctuality and adherence to the call
someone working fewer hours each week, but working of duty are paramount. This will ensure the productivity
efficiently. Set and communicate your boundaries. of the company as well as its employees. Having said
that, it needs to be ensured that employees lead their life
Work-life balance at Schneider Electric in colour, whereby they let their hair down over
We all know that Schneider Electric, the global specialist weekends at the nearest watering hole. Or
in energy management, comprises of more than 170,000 put their feet up at home, catching
employees working in 100+ countries. They offer up on their favourite sitcoms
employees unique opportunities to build or reading. HC
■ www.humancapitalonline.com October 2015 N 41

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WORK-LIFE BALANCE

40 N October 2015 www.humancapitalonline.com ■

these points which can positively impact both your career

■ www.humancapitalonline.com October 2015 N 41

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