Five boss ideas for real work/life balance
Work/Life balance
I blogged recently about this therapist’s view on real self-care that perhaps boils down to finding ways to show yourself some respect. I am often frustrated when I see articles online about work-life balance with self-care tips, as I find them to be too simplistic and short-sighted. They might be nice suggestions – I would love to get a massage or a manicure, but I am not sure that is enough to remove structural impediments that foster burnout in the first place.
About bosses
A 2020 article by the smart people at McKinsey espouses work environments that promote “mutual trust, encouragement, empathy, and good communication where employees can feel psychologically safe and satisfied and deliver their best work.“ If this sounds too touchy feely for you, I suggest you get over it. Expectations in the workplace change over time and many potential employees require support from their manager that is different from what your expected when you were new in your career. You may have been largely motivated by pay and that’s great but new staff may have additional expectations about their workplace and it would be your job to understand this. Some newer members of the workforce see you, boss, as their advocate and someone who will help them to navigate the challenges of the workplace. In fact, many people consider their relationship with their boss to be one of the greatest determinants of job satisfaction.
“Few managers realize what a dramatic impact—either positive or negative—they have on the world through their everyday behavior. It is the responsibility of senior leaders to enlighten them and provide the organizational context that consistently fosters high-quality relationships between bosses and the people who report to them.”
Prevent burnout structurally
I had a boss once (he was a pretty good boss, by the way) who told me in my performance review that I was doing well and it was great that we shared so many of the same views, and I had to gently explain that this was not so -- I often disagreed with his view and I was careful to disagree only when it was most important. Bless him, he was shocked to hear this and encouraged me to disagree more regularly, which generated mixed results over time. My point is that the boss tends to underestimate the impact of power differentials and have a poor grasp on the motivations and true satisfaction of team members.
Here are five specific suggestions for real work/life balance and gain insight into your team’s actual experience:
1. Work hours and availability (no, really)
Is it a 40-hour a week position? More? Less? Is this a strict requirement or does it matter more that the work is completed? Are your team members on-call? How often are they doing this on-call work outside of normal hours? Is this work being shared fairly? What mechanism is used to determine who has to chip in with extra time? It doesn’t have to be identical but it should be fair, as not everyone has the same role and responsibilities, but I would not be surprised to hear that night-time/week-end coverage and client emergencies are dealt with by a subset of the team and others are spared this duty.
2. Work from home/hybrid policy: What is the real reason you need employees to be in the office?
Perhaps you see posts in your LinkedIn or other social media sites where folks are protesting companies’ "return to the office” policies. It could just be the luck of the algorithms, but I typically see younger employees advocating for more flexible policies and the more senior folks speaking in platitudes and generalities about “it being time to be back” and that "it’s about culture”. I always read this divergence as a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of a boss. Many employees now want to be supported to succeed, where the seasoned boss type wants things back to “the way it used to be” because it was easier for them to do their job. Does this sound harsh? Maybe so, however your work from home/hybrid policy this can be a key contributor to employee satisfaction and doesn’t actually cost anything.
In one of my financial services roles, I had 1 hour and 50-minute commute into the office. Each way, so 220 minutes in commute time every work day. On the rare occasion I was allowed to work from home, I was able to sleep in almost two hours more. I was only permitted to do so once every few months and had to keep it on the down-low, almost like I was cheating. During these infrequent opportunities, I could bust out an entire whitepaper, as I could concentrate and write without interruption. In addition to the increased productivity, I was just plain old happy to get the lie-in, and it didn’t cost my firm anyone anything. In fact, I believe I could have been even more productive had I the chance to work from home, say, at least once a week, and I would have really appreciated it.
3. Clarity on performance measurement
Do people really know how they are being measured? The aforementioned article by McKinsey promotes “formal mechanisms that reinforce the right behaviors”. Setting the right mechanisms or metrics can be time-consuming but it is part of the job as a boss. Could you involve your team members is setting their deliverables so they agree that it is a fair representation of their contributions? Maybe you preferred the good ole days where you could just have an informal discussion and apply bonus money and raises at your discretion. Personally, I would be a little more careful about doling out money and career advancement opportunities to make sure you are ethically and legally acting in a fair and unbiased manner.
4. Review salary and advancement by gender, ethnicity, and other relevant categories
You know that few things de-motivate staff members more than realizing they are being paid less than their peers. I also recognize that salary budgets are not unlimited and can sometimes be a function of profitability or demand at the time. However, people are feeling more comfortable discussing salaries at work and, with few exceptions, you can’t stop them (per the NLRB) . If you want to be good at your job, you should be able to explain your compensation decisions and find ways to help your team succeed if they want salary increases or to advance professionally. You should have a long-term pay strategy that addresses targets and it should reflect actual quantifiable results.
5. Saying “no” at work – employee empowerment
Clarify the real expectations in terms of work responsibilities. Do your team members feel empowered to say “no” to excess demands on their time or projects that do not fall within their purview? I know it is super fun to have team members that agree to all work requests but this lends itself to prejudicial bias where women, people of color, and other people in a minority are often the ones expected to do the support work that reinforces being perceived as less successful, ambitious or capable. Empowering adults to push back on unreasonable demands allows them to feel respected.
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