How to reduce the conflict between employees' work and personal life

Work and personal life: arch-enemies, between whom peace seems impossible to achieve. In many cases, the pandemic situation and wider use of alternative work formats, such as remote working or the so-called hybrid model, have helped employees and managers find new ways to organise their work life; however, for many employees, the conflict between work and personal life is still very much an issue, resulting in lower productivity and burnout. This article describes four steps you as a team manager can take to help your employees better to balance their work and personal lives, so you will have only satisfied employees in your team, working in a sustainable manner.

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Step 1: Clearly define the roles of your team members

According to Center for Creative Leadership, first of all you must clearly define the roles of the individual team members. Frustration, overtime and disbalance between work and personal lives often stem from vaguely defined work duties. A conscientious employee may never be satisfied if it is not clearly defined where their duties end.

Step 2: Find out what employees want

While it is necessary to have clearly defined general rules within the team as a whole, every person has their own needs. Try to help your employees as much as you can, and talk to them individually about what arrangements would suit them best individually, so that they achieve the best possible work-life balance. Try as much as possible to accommodate the individual requests of your employees.

Step 3: Do not break the defined rules

Rules, both written and unwritten, must be adhered to. This applies to you too. If you do not want employees to work over the weekend, nor should you send e-mails on Saturdays and Sundays (even if you do not expect anyone to reply to them immediately).

Step 4: Offer employees long-term self-development

Satisfaction at work and a healthy work-life relationship are only possible if employees see their work gives them something in return. You should therefore offer employees the ability to develop themselves, ideally on an individual level, so they feel that they are going somewhere and their work has some meaning for them personally.

 

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Article source CCL Blog - official blog of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®)
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