At some point employees have all felt the stress of having too much work at the office and worrying about the consequences at home. But today, this feeling is more than just a rare occurrence; the majority of Canadians are coping with increasing stress and demanding workloads from their jobs.
When the pressures of work and family become too much, the temptation is to cut back on family and focus on work. This strategy works by relieving pressures at work, but at the expense of families. Those who decide to put family first may have less stress, but may find it harder to get ahead.
Instead of talking with managers about more realistic workloads, many people work through their lunch, take work home, come in early, or stay tethered to work via their BlackBerry while they’re away from the office.
But while all of these strategies help with overload, they simply raise expectations about how much employees are willing and able to do.
Many of the strategies Canadians use to cope with the stress induced by work-life imbalance are ineffective and unsustainable in the long run. There are more effective ways employees can deal with stress rather than attempting to “work harder and try to do it all” or by reducing the quality of things that they do.
One effective strategy is prioritizing and delegating work to others. People also need to make a concerted effort to leave work problems at work—both physically and mentally. Employees can also modify work schedules, by reducing the number of hours spent at work or by working different hours to help decrease stress.
Furthermore, men and women both benefit from having a spouse who will cover for them at home. Employees can cope with extra demands at work if they have a partner who they can count on to pick up the slack and if they’re willing to help out when the situation is reversed.
The “little things” such as getting enough sleep each night, maintaining a healthy social life and personal standards at home also help relieve stress.
But employees can’t do it alone. Employers need to realize that work and family aren’t separate spheres and that productivity depends on helping employees manage them together.
To help employees cope with increasing demands from both work and home life, employers can offer the following solutions:
Provide employees with a greater sense of control over their hours of work and their work schedule. To help employees cope with work-life conflict, organizations can allow employees to arrange their work schedule to meet family commitments, interrupt their work day for personal reasons and return to work, take their holidays when they want, be home in time to have meals with their family, and vary their hours of work.
Paid time off for career development. Employees should be allowed to attend relevant training sessions, courses and conferences on company time. The inability to participate in career development opportunities negatively affects employees. Employees with family responsibilities who try to maintain their professional credentials or increase learning on their own time run into increased work-life conflict. Those who do not engage in learning activities also pay a price through the lack of career mobility, reduced economic benefits, and job insecurity.
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Give employees the opportunity to take a fixed number of paid days off work per year to care for sick children or elderly dependents. Greater flexibility in both these areas is associated with an increased ability to cope with work-family conflict.
Introduce new performance measures that focus on meeting objectives and results; reduce the focus on hours. Employees need to be rewarded for output, not hours, and reward what is done, not where it is done. Employers need to reward people who have successfully combined work and family.
Increase the number of supportive managers. Employees who work for a supportive manager are substantially better able to cope with role overload, experience fewer occasions where work interferes with family, and family interferes with work. A supportive manager is one who recognizes that employees have a life outside of work and takes actions to help employees balance both aspects of their life. Companies should strive to increase the number of supportive mangers they have.
Offer part-time work and job sharing arrangements with pro-rated benefits. Organizations should redesign part-time jobs to ensure that people who engage in part-time work do not suffer economic or career penalties. This will be a key area of development as baby boomers retire. One way to cope with that immense loss of talent is to allow retirees to move into part-time and flexible jobs.
By following these suggestions, companies can help their employees reduce work-life conflict. Taking steps to minimize work-life conflict not only helps employees, it also benefits the company by reducing turnover, improving productivity, lowering absenteeism and creating a more committed work force.
Chris Higgins is a professor of information systems at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ont. His research focuses on the impact of technology on individuals, in areas such as alternative work arrangements and work and family issues and their impact on individuals and organizations.