The importance of work-life balance is often overlooked in companies. The hard cold truth is that overworking doesn’t create more productivity. If anything, it creates imbalances within the workplace and a toxic cycle that will cause more harm than good.

The wise thing to do is to promote a healthy balance of work and personal life to employees within a company. This is especially true for professionals in the IT industry, whose work requires them to be available for specific emergencies.

Perfecting the balance of work and personal life is not an overnight process but its results create benefits that are hard to ignore. Learn about the best ways to maintain your IT professional’s health and engagement while understanding the core benefits of work-life balance.

What is Work-life Balance?

The importance of work-life balance creates different definitions for many. Some people define work-life balance as having boundaries and being allowed to work through personal life tasks without needing to be micromanaged. Meanwhile, others define work-life balance as an equally divided set period for work and personal life. 

Both statements are valid and should be taken into consideration by employees. Regardless if the company prefers an onsite workplace or hybrid working. Every employee will have varied definitions of what work-life balance is which makes pleasing everyone nearly impossible. 

What is possible is collaboration to create a work-life balance strategy that benefits both the employer and its employees. Once you find a method that works for your company, it’s best to either improve or maintain this method to reap the benefits.

What are the Benefits of a Healthy Work-life Balance?

Before we get into how to improve work-life balance for employees let’s talk about the benefits that you can gain from it. There are many advantageous effects of improving your employee’s personal and work life but it can be 

Improved Physical and Mental Health

A big part of the importance of work-life balance is its improvement in physical and mental health. A lot of health-related problems occur due to overworking and burnout. The medical bills will top one another should they continue to overwork themselves.

As a result, an influx of sick leaves, health insurance payments, and other setbacks will continue. Furthermore, the changes in the employee’s mood will turn sour and cause miscommunication and eventually leaving your company.

Thanks to a balanced separation between work and personal life, employees will regain rest and motivation. Their stress levels will decrease and become more productive in the long run compared to others as well. 

Better Time Management

The importance of work-life balance isn’t just related to health. In terms of productivity, time management skills are improved. By being mindful of the time constraints they have within work and personal life durations, employees become more focused during the day.

This increases productivity and engagement during collaborative tasks. In the long run, it can even improve the efficiency of your employees during their shifts and produce high-quality products within a shorter period.

Increased Productivity and Engagement

The impact of work-life balance on productivity and engagement is also an alarmingly benefit. With a fresh set of eyes after a long night’s rest and time to socialise with their peers, employees become more engaged with their work and motivated during their hours.

Some find difficulty with keeping their mind from drifting to work during off hours. However, once they’ve gotten used to it, employees will find themselves more refreshed to begin their daily work life compared to before. This helps them to be motivated and continue offering suggestions, innovative ideas, and effective solutions to any errors during the business process both technical and otherwise. 

Higher Retention

For companies considering the importance of work-life balance, the biggest benefit is the high retention rates.

The lifeblood of a company is in its workforce. Businesses cannot proceed to service their consumers without their employees doing their part in the industry. This means training each employee on the processes, balancing their deliverables, and collaborating.

However, if your employee retention rate is low, you will have to restart these efforts repeatedly to hire a new hire every time. This means using extra time and effort to retrain new hires only to have them leave shortly after and repeating the process.

A high turnover rate can result in low-quality performances in your company’s growth and service. Opting to proceed with a work-life balance can prevent this and even instil employee loyalty to your company.

How do you Achieve Work-life Balance?

The great thing about the advantages and disadvantages of work-life balance is that the downsides can be fixed with key strategies that you can apply before any problems arise. Below are key methods for creating an advantageous balance between work and personal life.

Set a Goal and Utilise Time Management

The objective of work-life balance is to keep both personal and work-life productive. Some might argue that 24 hours a day is just not enough to keep up with all the tasks. However, if you learn to effectively set goals and properly manage your schedule, it becomes a reality.

Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed with unrealistic deadlines and expectations. Make sure to schedule each task daily, weekly, or monthly. This will prevent burnout and overtime as much as possible.

Once your objectives are set in stone, work around a schedule that prioritises the balance you’re looking for in work and personal life.

Prioritise Self-care

Some employees have learned to speak up about their needs and necessities effectively. Unfortunately, the importance of work-life balance for IT professionals in general tends to be overlooked.

Your IT professionals and other employees are indeed hired to prevent any catastrophic events that could cause errors in your business. However, employees must also learn when to set limits if their bodies are shutting down.

It’s quite easy to forget about your own needs and wants when you’re busy juggling everyone else’s. Keep your needs in mind with every decision you make when working. Going to work sick or tired will only increase your mental and health decline. 

Set Boundaries

The importance of work-life balance prevents anyone from overstepping boundaries towards you. Australia’s government had taken into consideration that their civilians were being overworked, overstressed, and completely overwhelmed regarding their work. That’s why they promoted the Australian work-life balance to their employees.

Understand their logic and prevent yourself from succumbing to losing passion for your job. Depending on your profession, you can easily respond to an email sent to you late in the evening on the next day.

But what about IT professionals? In terms of software, maintenance, and other technical requirements, there will be times when your assistance is needed outside of working hours.

The best thing to do is to lessen the burden of being called on time by setting boundaries and only being called on emergencies during off hours.

Take Breaks

There’s more to work-life balance than a balanced shifting schedule and time management. Throughout the shift, it’s important to take small breaks to refresh your mind and prevent yourself from giving out low-quality work.

There are many ways to utilise these breaks such as resting your eyes, working out, taking a walk, or snuggling a pet. Each of these has benefits to your health mentally and physically.

Consider using the Pomodoro technique when scheduling breaks. The process of the Pomodoro technique is to take short breaks after a long period of working straight. That way, your productivity maintains its momentum without straining yourself in return.

Conclusion

Understanding the importance of work-life balance is the key to improved employee retention and company growth. Undermining the quality of life that your employees have could result in major setbacks and high turnover rates that can derail any progress you could achieve.

The good news is that there are many ways to promote work-life balance. However, it takes both the employer and their employees to commit to these changes and improve their methods. 

Want to utilise the work-life balance methods and create a great workplace environment? Learn more tips and strategies from our blog page now!