We have all heard that it is important for employees to have a “work life balance”… but do you know

• what it is
• why it is valuable to ensure your employees have one?
• how to effectively assess your work life balance?

Most people think it is just about having flexibility in work time to be able to ‘duck off to a meeting at the school’ or ‘work from home when the kids are sick’… but is that all it is?

The experts don’t think so.

The Work Life Balance Foundation state on their website that

“Three major studies suggest that in Australia at least 24 days worth of productivity is lost per employee per year due to poor health and lifestyle factors costing Australian business $100 billion each year.

All employees struggle at times to balance work and family commitments as well as keeping healthy. The problem is that when workers have lowered levels of health and wellbeing or poor work life balance it severely limits business growth through lost productivity, stress and days off sick.”

So, as an employer, it is in your interests to talk to your staff about their “work/life/health” balance and ensure that they are fit to perform their duties at all times.

By using research tools like this quiz people are able to rate their work life balance and reflect on their quality of living.  It assesses how we view our life, work and career, home environment, finances, personal health, leisure and relationships to give us a ‘contemplation circle’ which gives us direction for us to start improving our balance.

All staff at Overells were recently given access to the Baume and Co quiz and were amazed at the depth the quiz went into and how it gave you specific areas to improve so as to lift overall lifestyle – never before would I personally have connected “my appliances work well” to my day to day duties, but having looked at in context of my overall happiness I’m quite glad I got the new kettle!

If you are looking for more inspiration

• have a look at the Work Life Balance Foundation’s website under “member resources” and see some articles on various work, life, health areas – everything from goal setting and planning to rest and relaxation
• do a google search on “Work life balance” “work life balance quiz” “work life balance ideas”
• start up a conversation with your team about what they think it is, and then do the Baume and Co quiz and see whether they feel they are on the right path.