Managing for Balance

As published in the Human Resources Association of Calagry Perspectives Magazine

According to the 2007 Desjardins Financial Services “Health is Cool” Survey only 14% of Canadians feel they can talk about work/life balance with their supervisors. In the current economic climate it is inevitable that that percentage is getting lower. We all know that balance needs to be more than just rhetoric and a set of meaningless policies. Having an authentic group of managers supported by targeted polices who manage individuals as individuals, is the best way to foster work life balance in your organization. As an employer this requires a two pronged approach to encourage balance and mitigate stress:
Making an official statement through policies and programs
Creating a culture of balance that moves the policies and programs from rhetoric to reality

Making an official statement through policies and programs
A Towers Perrin survey found more than 100 variations of work/life balance policies and programs. Beyond the more mainstream items such as EAP programs, wellness programs, time off in lieu, part-time work, and flex-time here are some other innovative ideas:

Blackberry policies: Encourage employees to truly take a vacation. Fostering the idea that the place will blow-up without them will simply add to their stress so make sure they actually have the support that allows them to unplug. According to a recent survey by the cruise planning site Tripharbour.ca, 21 percent of working Canadians are always connected to their workplace. In response, hotels have started offering “e-tox” services where guests can check their blackberries at the front desk for the duration of their stay. Implement your own e-tox policy that encourages employers to ‘switch off’ outside of business hours or at least for certain times in the evening, on weekends and, of course, while on vacation.

Concierge services: For busy families it is often difficult to get the little things done like dropping off the dry cleaning, making reservations, grocery delivery, scheduling household services or even getting a massage or flu shot. Having the opportunity to get these things done at the office allows the time your employees spend out of the office to be quality time.

Pro-rated vacation policies: Allowing employees to take vacation anytime within the year whether they’ve technically accrued it or not generates a culture of trust and true balance. At Graycon our vacation policy is pro-rated. You can take vacation any time in the year (including your first year on the job) and the requirement to use all your vacation each year is enforced. If you leave the company having taken more vacation for that year than you accrued that does need to be reimbursed to the company but this is a rare occurrence.

Creating a culture of balance
Policies and programs focused on balance are truly rhetoric if they are not re-enforced everyday on the job. Like so many business issues it all comes down to people and how they are managed. As HR professionals, we need to bring forward innovative ideas and rehash the best tried and true methods that will transform the rhetoric into reality.

Hire/train/support good people managers: Basic motivation principles dictate that the absence of good management leads to job dissatisfaction. At the other end of the spectrum a manager who trusts her employees to deliver results, who exhibits the behavior she expects and takes an individual approach with her employees will get the best results. When it comes to balance, the level of personal control an employee feels over their work and time is directly correlated with their ability to cope with stress and create the balance they need. As HR professionals, and people managers ourselves, ensuring that the tools and support mechanisms are in place to allow managers the flexibility and training needed to be good people managers is the key to work life balance.

Take trust to the next level: For information workers the idea of the Results-Only Work Environment (R.O.W.E.) is the next big idea in work life balance. Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson implemented this policy at Best Buy in the U.S. and have authored the book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It, documenting their work. R.O.W.E. means that workers come and go as they please as long as they deliver the work in the end. Many workplaces are taking baby steps towards this with flexible schedules but R.O.W.E. takes it to the extreme and requires a very large shift in culture. That being said, if your environment allows it, the shift may be well worth it. At Best Buy this policy resulted in lowered voluntary turn-over and increased involuntary turnover, valuable results when difficult times mean having to make difficult staffing choices.

Play to people’s strengths: A standard approach to work and work life balance will only satisfy a portion of your work force. As Marcus Buckingham has proven over years of study and a number of bestselling books, managers who can manage “variance”, otherwise known as individual personalities, are the ones who get the best results. Playing to peoples strengths allows each individual to be their most productive. Managers who find a way to create work arrangements that maximize the use of an individual’s strengths and minimize the need to work in the areas they are weak spend more time getting the work done and less time fighting to make people fit the mold. Apply this principle to work life balance and we come back to the R.O.W.E. concept, allowing people options and flexibility to work when and where they work best. The combination leads to happy, productive employees.

We all know that fostering balance is a win/win for both employer and employee, especially when the added stress of the times can reduce productivity even further. Healthy employees are much more creative and productive in the long-term than people stretched to their limit. As work becomes more information based and technology allows for more and more flexibility, letting go of our traditional view of the work day still proves to be a difficult challenge. As employers we need to make a shift to what Henry Mintzberg called “No longer the management of human resources but rather the human management of resources.”

By Kathleen Saddington Durston, Training and Development Consultant at the Graycon Group Ltd.