Work-life balance… the company factor

Question:

Dear AFETT,

My name is Stephan and I am the managing director of a small company in the export industry with just about 45 employees. In the past three months I have noticed a drastic change in the work ethic of one of my most valued employees and executive managers... she is often late for work, leaves early and when at work she is missing from her desk or distracted. Moreso, she is not as active in the decision making process as she was prior. Is there anything as her supervisor that I can do to assist her without appearing as though I am prying into her personal life?

Thank you so much!

~ Small Company CEO

Dear Small Company CEO,

Thank you for reaching out to us. It sounds like a case of work life balance challenges. This is a topic on which we at AFETT have given advice many times over the years.

Finding the right approach to coping with challenges both in and outside of the work and home arena is an issue that many of our female executives face as their priorities in life shift focus. Many of them have expressed guilt and concern that they may be neglecting their home schedules in order to meet work demands.

However, while our responses and advice have often dealt with the employee side of things, your perspective allows us to examine the effects that not having a balanced life has on a company’s bottom-line. It is obvious that your executive manager is crucial to your business.

Business News Weekly considers that work-life balance among employees is critical to a company’s development and productivity and I am inclined to agree.

Additionally, Harvard Business School believes that harvesting the right balance may actually help to introduce some ways to be more productive.

The question in this case, however, is ‘how does one find the right balance to maintain a positive and financially healthy organisation?’ Especially when the imbalance directly affects company’s bottom line.

It appears that there may be some disconnect between your employee and the company. With a change in anyone’s circumstance, it is very easy to shift focus and redirect one’s energy without realising. Perhaps some re-evaluation of goals for both the organisation and your employee should be had to determine where the disconnect lies.

Try having a team building exercise among the directors and executives that focuses on revisiting personal and company goals and objectives. This would prove beneficial to you and address your concerns as it would lend you great insight into your employee’s current life experiences without openly prying into her personal life.

Remember that having the right work-life balance is important to both employee and business development. Also, creating the right opportunities to allow employees to consider their value to the company can help shift and refocus priorities to align with company objectives.

Another strategy that can prove helpful is to set clear, short-term targets for employees and each department. This would direct focus toward the accomplishment of tasks and duties and help highlight areas that may be challenging or need some extra attention.

The goal is to encourage a work environment that fosters good work ethics without infringing on your employees’ personal goals and desires.

To further compliment this strategy, try implementing employee incentive schemes directly linked to the accomplishment of these short-term goals. This fosters greater team management and cohesion among the staff in each department and would initiate a spirit of engagement and participation from your employees.

Being responsible for team performance acts as a great motivator for keeping persons engaged and participating in an organisation’s goals and development strategy. Tom Gimble, founder and CEO of LaSalle Network believes that “people push harder if they know everyone else is pushing”. This is a concept that I have witnessed numerous times. Being responsible for the accomplishments and failures of others adds perspective and insight into the larger scheme of things.

In this situation, by making your executive manager responsible for the success and failures of her team’s short-term goals would equip her with the foresight to consider the impact of her actions on the company’s bottom-line.

Another approach to motivating your employee is to create a culture of trust. Many managers seek to minimise the time employees spend out of the business, believing that the time they spend at their desk is directly connected to productivity. Effective work-life balance support calls for a mentality switch. Showing that you trust employees to deliver high quality work, regardless of where they work from or how long they work, will get you much farther in the well-being and engagement game.

This strategy then allows you to implement schedule flexibility which can include amended days and hours of work thereby promoting a more relaxed work environment.

To get your employee to open up about her situation, try promoting an open-door policy. The first step to supporting work-life balance is to create a culture where trust and two-way communication are valued. The more you encourage employees to discuss their difficulties with you, the easier it will be to help them manage their time and workload. So you need to put some effort into this to make it work.

Always bear in mind that your employee is also going through a transition which can be part of the reason for her shift in focus. Adopting any of these strategies would prove most effective when her current life situation is dealt with delicately, making her feel more comfortable to balance her home and work schedules to ensure more efficiency in her performance at the office.

We wish you success, AFETT.

AFETT is a not-for-profit organisation formed in 2002 with the goal of bringing together professional women and engaging in networking opportunities, professional training and business ideas. ‘Ask AFETT’ is a column meant to address issues and concerns of professionals seeking advice to assist in progressing in their careers. Today's response was written by AFETT member, Jeane Warner, director – Research and Public Advocacy of AFETT. Learn more about AFETT at www.afett.com, search for AFETT events on Facebook, follow us @AFETTEXECS on Twitter or contact us at 354-7130, email us at admin.afett@gmail.com

The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors, meant strictly as advice and guidance, based upon their experience and expertise. In no way are they meant to be legally binding upon AFETT and or its members, servants nor agents.