Three ways to improve employees’ work-life balance
Yet for all these advances, many companies still operate under an outdated 9-5 model. When it comes to happiness at work, today, we see four generations working together, each with their own work requirements and work preferences. Generation Y (aka millennials), for example, enjoy working from home and are happy to mix work time and free time, whereas Generation Z demands a clear distinction between work and leisure.
Regardless of age, while work contributes to our happiness by providing us with a combination of fulfilment, purpose, meaning and social connection, our hobbies and interests outside of work, our families and our friends are also essential to our happiness. Happy people make happy employees.
Below, we offer three tips on how you, as an employer, can support employee work-life balance:
1. Offer flexitime and the ability to work-from-home
For employers wishing to promote work-life balance, flexitime is one of the most obvious ways, and one that is very high up on the work requirement list for Generation Z. In fact, in 2018, we surveyed more than 20,000 employees and HR leaders from over 100 organisations across a variety of industries. We found that working hours and vacation benefits are one of the most popular in today’s workplaces — with as many as 69% of employees saying they enjoy flexible working perks.
For employees with young babies, long commutes, or elderly or dependent relatives, allowing employees to adjust their schedules to support their lifestyle is an attractive offering. Furthermore, not everyone is at their most productive or energetic between the hours of 9am and 5pm. Many people prefer to work in the early morning or later at night, and flexitime allows them to do this.
Technology has also made it such that, today, employees can work from home with ease – another perk that is greatly appreciated by many. While it’s not practical or possible for every job, a two-year study conducted by Stanford University professor Nicholas Bloom concluded that employees are, in fact, more productive when working from home. This benefit is in addition to lower company overheads, fewer distractions, reduced commuting times and improved work-life balance.
2. Prioritise employee health
Perhaps the strongest argument for work-life balance is employee health. After all, happy and healthy employees are more productive, more engaged in their work, take fewer sick days, and contribute to a more positive culture, among other countless advantages.
Prioritising employee health also means strengthening your employer brand. Support the health of your employees by offering employee benefits such as fresh fruit and other healthy snacks in the workplace, discounted gym and training passes, subsidised breakfasts, access to mental health resources, yoga classes and more. The sky is the limit in terms of your employee benefits offering.
3. Automate processes and make information accessible
In an article called Productivity, Lost Time, and the Power of AI to Make Search Easier, the author cites a 2001 IDC white paper on a study that showed “workers who manage, create, or edit documents for a company were spending up to 2.5 hours per day searching for what they needed”. The same article references another IDC white paper published in 2012 which found that, of the 1,200 information workers and IT professionals surveyed, an average of 4.5 hours a week was spent looking for documents. That’s a lot of time wasted.
Today, it’s still common to hear of HR departments all over the world handling dozens of inquiries from employees every day concerning holidays, sick leave and compensation. As explained in our e-book The Rise of HR, in the early days, HR professionals handled administrative tasks, helping employees with paperwork, and keeping track of vacation and other benefits. The future of work, however, will see HR professionals having the biggest impact on how we’ll work.
Cloud-based solutions enable companies to centralise and automate the way they administrate processes from onboarding to distributing data to local insurers, carriers and payrolls. Portals can also reduce the number of inquiries to HR by allowing employees to access all of their employment information in one place, saving time and resources for both employer and employee.
This article is provided by Benify
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Benify
Benify offers the market's leading global benefits and total reward platform.
