Work life balance - any improve for business?


Book Description

Essay from the year 2004 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: Good, University of East London, language: English, abstract: The role of work and the workplace have changed throughout the world due to economic conditions and social demands. Global competition, renewed interest in personal lives and family values and an ageing workforce are factors which contribute to the serious consideration of equilibrium between work and life (Lockwood, 2003). The challenge of work-life balance is rising to the top of many employees’ and employers’ consciousness. Employees are placing more value on quality of working life and seeking for greater flexibility so that they can manage work commitments along personal life. Employers, on the contrary, need in today’s economic climate a workforce that is stable and committed but also more adaptable and flexible to meet business challenges. Finding the right balance between work responsibilities and the demands on personal lives is conclusively becoming a significant issue (Loghran, 2002). Therefore, at the core of human resource strategy lays the need to consider work-life balance for employees. One of the vehicles to help provide attainment of personal and professional goals are work-life programmes. But why should organisations follow this work-life trend? Is it a critical business issue or simply the “right thing to do”? Which potential business improvement does work-life programmes offer to organisations? The aim of this report is to analyse the benefits for employers when implementing work-life balance programmes. Therefore, the concept of work-life balance will be defined and the potential business benefits will be analysed. Based on this analysis, this report will show that organisations can gain a competitive advantage when offering work-life initiatives.




Balance is B.S.


Book Description

Combine the best parts of your personal and professional life to live the life you really want Balance is B.S. is an unflinching and honest look at the challenges today’s working woman faces in balancing her professional and personal lives. In the United States, women comprise over 40% of household income. Increased gender diversity in the modern business landscape continues to have a positive impact on bottom lines and revenue reports across the economy, and offers significant benefits for ambitious women in the workplace. This increase of women in the workforce does present a serious problem—women are working longer and harder outside of the home, but their workload has not lessened inside of the home. While their career prospects rise, expectations of their family and personal lives remain flat. Women pursue the mythical “work-life” balance, and feel guilty for not reaching it. There is a better way. This insightful book provides working women with real-world advice, enabling them to blend their personal and professional lives, avoid burning out, and raise expectations of themselves and those around them. Every chapter presents practical exercises to identify values, and focus on what matters most. Following the path laid out by this essential guide, you will learn how to: Blend business and personal lives together without compromising your values Adjust expectations of yourself and others around you Use practical exercises and effective techniques to combine work, social, family, and parenting lives Stop feeling guilty about your work-life balance, and embrace the best parts of both Balance is B.S. is an invaluable resource for working women regardless of profession, experience, and status. Author Tamara Loehr draws on her years of entrepreneurial success to share her proven methods of merging work, play, and family to map out and reach the life you actually want to live.




Mompowerment


Book Description




HBR Guide to Work-Life Balance


Book Description

Stop running on empty. Every day you juggle the many components that fill your life. Between work and family commitments, volunteer work, hobbies, and managing your physical and mental health, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and that you’re letting someone down or neglecting some aspect of your life. But you can find ways to honor all of your commitments without collapsing. The HBR Guide to Work-Life Balance will help you: Evaluate and adjust your priorities Manage expectations Set and spend your time budget Make plans--and backup plans Understand how to make trade-offs Prioritize self-care Discover what works for you




Off Balance


Book Description

The prescriptive follow-up to the New York Times bestseller The Dream Manager. One of the major issues in our lives today is work-life balance. Everyone wants it; no one has it. But Matthew Kelly believes that work- life balance was a mistake from the start. Because we don't really want balance. We want satisfaction. Kelly lays out the system he uses with his clients, his team, and himself to find deep, long-term satisfaction both personally and professionally. He introduces us to the three philosophies of our age that are dragging us down. He shows us how to cultivate the energy that will give us enough battery power for everything we need and want to do. And finally, in five clear steps, he shows us how to use his Personal & Professional Satisfaction System to establish and honor our biggest priorities, even if we spend a lot more time on some of the lesser ones.




Work-Life Matters


Book Description

Work-life balance isn’t about where or how you spend your time. At least not solely. It’s about where and how you use and replenish your energy. Work matters. Life matters. Work-life matters. As we start to navigate life during and after the pandemic, employers and employees are increasingly re-evaluating how work can be made more sustainable and more fulfilling. Many employees - particularly Gen X and Gen Z - are seeking a new psychological contract with their employers. Putting these trends into context and offering practical solutions, this book takes a deep dive into why work matters as part of a healthy and fulfilling life. The authors present a new and different way of thinking about the matter of balance, arguing that there is no hard divide between ‘work’ and life’ because ‘work’ takes place entirely within ‘life’ and you can’t balance two things when one is a subset of the other. To achieve the balance required for a healthy existence, we need to recognise that there are activities in all parts of work-life that drain our energy and others that give us a buzz. Rather than trying to solve the drain of hard work by living it large at the weekend – or compensating for an unfulfilling home life by working like a demon, we need to create balance at work and balance at home. Now is a golden opportunity to re-examine the world of work and job-craft to make them more satisfying, less draining and more energising. The ideas in this book provide a practical guide to help that process.




The New Normal Work life Balance


Book Description

The #New Normal Work-Life Balance Are You Struggling To Balance Your Work & Life Amid This NewNormal? Discover How To Get Control of Your Life, Avoid Stress & Burnouts By Maintaining A Proper Balance Between Your Work & Life While Working Remotely During This Pandemic!!! It has been over a year and we’ve seen and done things we’d never imagine! From stockpiling toilet paper, hand sanitizer, fighting over face masks, to working from the couch. Although the frenzy of stockpiling has subsided, we continue to work from home. This Transition Has Been Unfamiliar, But It Has Become Our NEW NORMAL! Everyone fortunate enough to remain employed (as some companies had to shut down offices or undergo major retrenchment) had to instantaneously adapt to the new routine. Here’s something that will surprise you. Ever since the Work-From-Home model has come into effect, work-life balance has been affected. Now, you may be wondering if employees are working from home, wouldn’t that be good for their family life? After all, they are spending most of their time at home, leaving them to have a better work-life balance. The truth is that work-life balance has been highly affected because of the work from home model, and the ‘new normal’. As a matter of fact… Seven in 10 Americans working from home during COVID-19 are struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance. 65% of people admit that now that they’re working remotely, they’re working longer hours than ever before. 56% of people say they’re more stressed about work than ever before when working from home during COVID-19. The average workday lengthened by 48.5 minutes following stay-at-home orders and lockdowns. 40% of remote workers say unplugging after hours is the biggest challenge of working remotely. 67% of people working remotely feel pressure to be available at all hours of the day. 29% of remote workers say they struggle to have a work-life balance, compared to 23% of in-office employees. Though #workfromhome has mostly been a blessing, there are a few drawbacks - the skewed work-life balance is one of them. According to the Harvard Business Review, close to $190 billion is spent on employees facing burnout. A poor work-life balance is one of the major reasons for burnout, and therefore, must be addressed at the earliest. Especially given the unpredictable, often under-pressure workplace environment and the added blurring of lines between work and personal because of the need to work from home more often due to COVID. If you want to have a more balanced life then it’s important to understand what balance even is. Because most people get it wrong and end up feeling stressed, tired, and overworked with no time for themselves, their families, and friends. Well, not anymore… Because we are about to show you what is the right work-life balance and how you can achieve it in the new normal quickly and easily… Learn How To Manage Your Work Environment During This Pandemic To Create A Better Work-Life Balance! A comprehensive guide that will help you to achieve work-life balance as a remote worker, get control of your life and adopt healthy lifestyle changes.




The Work-Life Balance Myth: Rethinking Your Optimal Balance for Success


Book Description

An empowering guide that will show you how to shed the myth of the “work-life balance” by merging the seven key components that make up your life to attain harmony and whole-life success “All of us have Seven Slices in our lives: our Family Slice, our Professional Slice, our Personal Slice, our Physical Slice, our Intellectual Slice, our Emotional Slice, and our Spiritual Slice. These all need to be served in some fashion—and in serving them, they, in turn, serve us.” This relatively simple but profoundly critical concept is at the heart of the method executive coach David McNeff has used to transform the lives and careers of his clients. It begins with two important facts: 1) stress happens—you can’t avoid it; and 2) your existence is composed of far more than “work” and “life.” Too often, we divide our lives into those two general categories, but we’re all a lot more complex and our lives are richer than that. By being clear and mindful of all aspects of your life—the Seven Slices—you’ll be more likely to find inner harmony when stress impacts one of them. In The Work-Life Balance Myth, McNeff takes you on a deep dive into each of the Seven Slices, explaining the components of each Slice, signs that you may not be attending to each Slice in a healthy way, and hands-on methods for accessing an underserved Slice. The Work-Life Balance Myth won’t make your life perfect—no one can do that, and you shouldn’t trust anyone who makes that promise. What this book will do is provide you with proven new ways of framing your life, seeing stress for what it is, and vastly improving your ability to navigate the emotional challenges that will inevitably arise in a way that serves your Seven Slices.




Work-Life Balance


Book Description

In today's fast-paced world where things are rapidly changing and one technology is beating another, companies are also in the race of getting better than each other. In such a situation, the professional life and the personal life of the individuals and all the employees is mixed, and nowadays, people do not have time for their personal life. For any individual, it is important to work, but at the same time, it is equally important to have a personal time in which the individuals can spend time with their family and friends. Due to the rising competition among different companies, the employees are getting higher workload, and as a result, most of the employees are stressed out. It is significant to understand the importance of a work-life balance of an individual or an employee so it does not affect the mental and physical health of the employees of a company.




The 4 Day Week


Book Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS 2021 In The 4 Day Week, entrepreneur and business innovator Andrew Barnes makes the case for the four-day work week as the answer to many of the ills of the 21st-century global economy. Barnes conducted an experiment in his own business, the New Zealand trust company Perpetual Guardian, and asked his staff to design a four-day week that would permit them to meet their existing productivity requirements on the same salary but with a 20% cut in work hours. The outcomes of this trial, which no business leader had previously attempted on these terms, were stunning. People were happier and healthier, more engaged in their personal lives, and more focused and productive in the office. The world of work has seen a dramatic shift in recent times: the former security and benefits associated with permanent employment are being displaced by the less stable gig economy. Barnes explains the dangers of a focus on flexibility at the expense of hard-won worker protections, and argues that with the four-day week, we can have the best of all worlds: optimal productivity, work-life balance, worker benefits and, at long last, a solution to pervasive economic inequities such as the gender pay gap and lack of diversity in business and governance. The 4 Day Week is a practical, how-to guide for business leaders and employees alike that is applicable to nearly every industry. Using qualitative and quantitative data from research gathered through the Perpetual Guardian trial and other sources by the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology, the book presents a step-by-step approach to preparing businesses for productivity-focused flexibility, from the necessary cultural conditions to the often complex legislative considerations. The story of Perpetual Guardian's unprecedented work experiment has made headlines around the world and stormed social media, reaching a global audience in more than seventy countries. A mix of trenchant analysis, personal observation and actionable advice, The 4 Day Week is an essential guide for leaders and workers seeking to make a change for the better in their work world.