Introduction
People sometimes sacrifice other elements of their lives to pursue a job and a decent wage, such as leisure time, communication with family, and even health. This is a problem that psychologists, employees, and business executives worldwide are concerned about. Work-life imbalances reduce productivity and cause mental and physical health issues. Those who thrive in the five “elements of well-being” outperform those who do not.
The Concept of Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance refers to separating professional and personal realms that complement one another. If the balance is right, a person may work successfully and enjoyably while leading an active and diverse life (Ślęzak, 2021). There is no uniform formula for determining how many hours a day a person should dedicate to work, their family, and themselves.
Everyone has a distinct golden mean between work and personal life. Finding a balance should be handled from the standpoint of priorities. What one person finds fulfilling may not be relevant to another. Everyone has a unique set of values, and it is critical to understand what emotionally energizes them, gives them energy, and allows them to enjoy life.
A person with a family and children needs more time for domestic tasks than a bachelor. Some people are concerned with self-actualization, while others consider a career just as a means of earning money. Moreover, other people get so euphoric from working that it gives them more happy emotions than any other interest.
The key to work-life balance is to avoid drawing distinct lines between work and personal life. Work-life balance is about having adequate space for everything: work, communication, interests, active and restful leisure, and feeling harmonious. People can determine that it is disturbed by paying attention to the fact that the person is constantly thinking about work; even in the evenings or on weekends, he plans and decides in his mind work responsibilities.
Another sign may be that the worker feels uncomfortable in front of loved ones because they spend so little time with them and work so much. Encounters with friends, sports, or other pastimes are increasingly being postponed to work more. A symptom of a disturbed balance is that the worker decides what is preferable – going to bed early or doing household chores and not getting enough sleep, as work becomes too tiring again. The person gets tired faster, which makes him or her work more slowly. The employee also does not get enough rest and does not get enough sleep.
A lack of balance between work and personal life leads to mental and physical health issues. Burnout is characterized by fatigue, increased worry and stress at work, poor sleep, and a lack of physical exercise. Christina Maslach, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is a key modern researcher of the burnout phenomenon. Maslach’s categorization distinguishes burnout from other emotional changes since it is directly tied to persistent activity (Banerjee et al., 2023).
Journalists took up the story without comprehending it: papers declared exhaustion an illness. However, it is not; specialists did not place it on the list of medical diagnoses (Banerjee et al., 2023). The syndrome is classified as a stress-related condition. It is a factor that can impact illness development, but it is not a disease in and of itself. Blunted emotions and a continual sense of exhaustion characterize professional burnout. The phrases professional burnout and emotional burnout are synonyms for the same thing.
Remote Work as a Solution for Balance
Switching to remote work is one strategy to deal with burnout and promote work-life balance. This model allows for flexibility, enabling young parents to care for their children without difficulty, and saves time and money on commuting to work. However, there are advantages and disadvantages for both the company and the employee. Several recent studies have shown that people who work remotely are happier and more productive. Telecommuting enables employees to work at their own pace. Most remote employees may schedule their own time and work at their own speed.
The following benefits are fewer sick days and vacation time. When a person is at home, they may prevent avoidable health risks and take care of themselves by taking their medications on time. People who work from home also have more time for family and friends. Social relationships and contact with family are critical for anybody. Another advantage is the ability to travel.
Modern technology has advanced to the point where it is feasible to work practically everywhere with Internet connectivity. A remote format allows an employee to focus better. Whether he works in a large or small team, the workplace will always have more stressful situations and numerous distractions than at home. Additionally, such an employee’s mobility grows.
However, there are many drawbacks to this form of work. Suppose a person has a personality that prefers a disciplined and systematic approach to work. In that case, they are likely to be able to work remotely well. However, productivity might decline substantially for people who like being regularly sidetracked by social media, entertainment, and other things unrelated to their core profession. Unlike in the workplace, working from home is likely to be unsupervised, which can be a serious issue for certain people.
Small pleasures, such as chatting with coworkers over a cup of tea or sharing a meal, help to dilute the workday and provide a respite. When working from home, most people only contact their bosses and other firm employees via Skype or email. Furthermore, no matter how powerful current communication technologies are, they will never be able to replace genuine human interaction.
From the employer’s perspective, managing a team of remote employees is far more challenging than managing a team of in-office employees. As a result, they are less frequently trusted to supervise the entire project and instead assign activities linked to a certain stage of its implementation. In any event, for many professionals, switching to remote work ends their career progression. Moreover, team leaders are often chosen from personnel working in the company’s office, as this gives a higher degree of input.
The United States is now the most developed country in terms of remote work. This is hardly unexpected given the number of technology businesses that have pioneered this type of employee involvement, such as working from home (Banerjee et al., 2023). Those who work remotely perceive themselves to be more productive and happier than those who work in an office (Banerjee et al., 2023).
Not unexpectedly, the share of remote workers on the payrolls of organizations worldwide has continuously increased since 2010 (Ślęzak, 2021). It is so frequent that an employee is more likely to blame the firm for excessive stress and overwork than himself. Workload overload, never-ending duties, and misunderstandings with coworkers. Even with the most devoted management, it is possible to become overwhelmed. In general, how a person transitions from one job to another and how much effort he puts into it is up to him.
The remainder is spent on talks with coworkers, social media, and news reading. Tasks expand, they must be completed late at night, and the working day lengthens to 12 hours (Ślęzak, 2021). However, the firm also has another responsibility: to establish comfortable working circumstances and to view people as valued resources rather than machines. This method began with IT firms, and as time passed, yoga in the workplace, psychology, and flexible working hours became the norm.
Corporate Culture and Practical Examples
Employees at firms with a strong work-life balance are happier, which is reflected in their productivity. Slack, for example, avoids extremely cozy workplace settings to encourage staff to leave early (Dinh et al., 2021). It is difficult to picture large tech firms’ headquarters without fitness centers, game rooms, sleeping pods, and other amenities like climbing walls.
Slack, a corporate communication tool, has taken a fresh approach to workplace architecture. The company’s offices in San Francisco are purposefully minimalist, with no ping-pong tables or evening yoga. Employees are expected to arrive at work, be as productive as possible, and leave on time before leaving too late.
The phrase “Work hard and go home” is already deeply embedded not only in the company’s attitude but also within the workplace – this wording can be found on the walls of the headquarters (Dinh et al., 2021). The corporation regularly uses a corporate blog to remind staff of the importance of this choice. Here is a recent piece about how reducing distractions in the office helps people get their job done quicker and better without feeling overwhelmed.
The corporation in Ryan, Texas, had an ingrained culture of overwork. Every employee was required to work a 55-hour week, including weekends (Yoon & Park, 2022). The firm’s yearly turnover rate was 22%, which was lower than the industry average of 27% but still far from optimal (Yoon & Park, 2022). When important personnel began to quit, things markedly turned for the worse.
The CEO then chose to restructure the company’s corporate culture and communicate to staff that performance, not time output, is most important (Yoon & Park, 2022). As a result, the firm began to review all measurements and performance indicators, discovering that all workers who worked 70 hours per week were much less productive than those who worked 40-50 hours (Yoon & Park, 2022). Furthermore, the corporation ceased tracking how much time workers spent at work as long as all duties were accomplished correctly and on schedule.
In addition, everyone was offered the option of working from home. The outcomes of the new system transfer exceeded all expectations. Customer satisfaction and financial performance have both increased as staff turnover has dropped.
Conclusion
Thus, the opportunity to engage in personal and family life is at the heart of a successful work-life balance. This is not to say that one should not prioritize one’s professional life, but rather that the employee should remember that work and life outside are equally vital. Colleagues are not only folks a person sees with a laptop all day. They are folks who have a plethora of significant obligations outside of work. When everyone internalizes this thinking style, they will discover they can attain a good work-life balance.
References
Banerjee, G., Mitchell, J. D., Brzezinski, M., DePorre, A., & Ballard, H. A. (2023). Burnout in academic physicians. The Permanente Journal, 27(2), 142. Web.
Dinh, J. V., Reyes, D. L., Kayga, L., Lindgren, C., Feitosa, J., & Salas, E. (2021). Developing team trust: Leader insights for virtual settings. Organizational Dynamics, 50(1), 100846.
Moss, J. (2021). The burnout epidemic: The rise of chronic stress and how we can fix it. Harvard Business Press.
Ślęzak, I. (2021). The work-life management strategies of indoor female sex workers in Poland. Sociological Spectrum, 41(6), 438-456. Web.
Yoon, M., & Park, C. (2022). The gendered effect of the organizational work-devotion norm on turnover intention of employees with children. Journal of Asian Sociology, 51(1), 29-66.