A business executive mentioned to me the other day that the majority of talent in her organization had “one foot in the job and one foot in the job market” meaning most of the workers had not realized their social, economic and personal goals. If this statement characterizes your organization you should consider incorporating a more holistic approach to assure the employee has a balance between work and life!

Organizations that fail to recognize the need to design and promote a work/life equity program will have a workforce that is always looking for that “perfect” job while gliding through their daily duties. Obviously, such an environment would produce sub-optimized performance and could adversely impact the workforce morale. 

Recent studies indicate that Work/life strategies are now imperative to keep talent and increase productivity in a knowledge-based economy. Even during this economic climate, sustainability of your most profitable employees will make a difference in ensuring medium to long-term profitability. Organizations need to examine the key benefits, problems/challenges and key implementation considerations when considering work/life and workplace flexibility strategies.

A person’s career is only one aspect of their life and the sooner organizations understand that principle, the better it will be for the organization and the individual. The workplace is just a mechanism that enables an individual to “act out” their talent, receive recognition for achievement, and experience meaningful career growth. Organizations that do not attempt to align employee personal and career goals will generally have a reluctant and unhappy employee.

The workplace should be a place where personal dreams and career ambitions can be realized. To assure such an environment, the organization should consider investing time and resources toward assisting the employee’s goals. The work environment can be designed to have a mixture of “must do” tasks/duties to meet performance objectives and “like to do” learning opportunities that will be used later in the employee’s career.

Organizations that invest in their workforce generally have a happier workforce. One only needs to look at the successful Fortune 500 companies that have high morale and low employee turnover. Reason? They continually develop the employee’s skill and knowledge levels.

There is a saying in the personnel management space that goes something like the following: “Companies that expand employee capability (skills and knowledge) are very different than companies that ‘extract’ skill and knowledge and never replenish.” A very smart and capable employee in a company that continually develops their talent will think twice before leaving for a career opportunity in another organization that will use their talent for a season then discard them. Something to think about!

Identify Company and Life Roles

Successful work/life strategies help the employee identify and prioritize their life goals. Goal setting has been around for a long time and organizations are pretty good at establishing business goals but often fall short when aligning those goals with the employee’s personal goals. Organizations should consider developing a policy to help employees reach both career and personal goals. High performing organizations conduct meetings and even invest in training classes that help employees align their life priorities with work related performance goals.

Each organization has its own unique culture and workplace environment so there is not a “one size fits all” strategy that can be incorporated. Leaders need to understand their culture and the motivations of its employees. There are numerous human resource development organizations that specialize in helping modern organizations frame a strategy and positive work/life development plan.

Today’s organizations experience 4-6 major changes in operations/strategy each year.  These changes could suddenly become a barrier to one or more employee’s life goals. Implementing a process to continually keep corporate and personal goals/objects in alignment is essential for the individual and the corporate profit strategy.

Yes. It is true. Unhappy employees do impact corporate performance and profits.

Work/Life Strategy will require a change management strategy

A successful change strategy is to assure the new policy places People over Programs, Processes and Profit. This approach is new to most organizations and they will need to change their thinking and business practices to successfully implement a work/life program. This can take time and there could be some initial resistance, but stay the course and the reward will be tremendous.  One strategy is to evolve rigid work environments into more flexible, family-centric focused strategies. Offering employees flex-time hours, part-time, job sharing, compressed work weeks, and telecommuting opportunities could be a winning formula!

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