Public health is affected as high-pressure work demands can lead to stress-related illnesses. The situation is aggravated because work can affect the way one lives, and unhealthy life choices are all too common.
Business results are affected because stressed employees are poor performers and unhealthy life choices lead to greater incidence of sickness absences.
With both governments and businesses interested in the issue, work-life balance has indeed become a center of considerable attention.
How Work Can Affect Life
A healthy life requires attention to important life areas such as family, children, friends and hobbies. A high-pressure work situation and time spent on commuting can eat into the time available for workers to attend to these areas. As a result, these important areas tend to be neglected.
Job security has also suffered with changing trends in industry. Information technology and competitive pressures have led to the practical disappearance of the earlier phenomenon of lifetime employment with one employer.
Employees are generally looking for better opportunities while employers might be seeking ways to reduce costs by replacing employees. Both these lead to frequent job changes and even to re-locations, adding to the stress and pressures faced by employees.
Add to these the stress of constant technological changes and the need to learn new things, and you get a future-shocked generation.
Results of Unbalanced Work-Life Situations
Rise in workplace violence, increase in levels of absenteeism and rising trend of workmen's compensation claims have made employers keenly aware of the need to attend more to the work-life balance of their employees.
In the personal lives of employees, inadequate time for family life and parenting lead to marriage problems and a generation of children increasingly addicted to harmful substances and ways of life.
Pressures created by the work situation are also affecting health and sexual lives.
Achieving Better Work Life Balance
Personal ambitions, a consumerist culture, an emphasis on "work-ethic" to the neglect of personal lives and the time squeeze caused by the demands of work, commuting and personal affairs are all contributing to the upset work life balance.
Remedial measures need to focus on certain key areas, including in particular:
Personal training to focus employee attention on the important things for a healthy life of fulfilling relationships
Employers realizing the benefits of helping their employees find a work-life balance, through training programs, flexible working hours, and other measures
Studies have indicated that by allowing some degree of control for employees to choose when, where and how they work, employers can realize significant business benefits.
Conclusion
When demands of work leaves little time for important areas of life like family, children, friends and hobbies, work-life balance gets upset. The result can be felt in employee health, levels of stress, marriage, problem children, low work performance, absenteeism and so on.
Achieving better work life balance requires both employee training and employer orientation changes.
Work Life Balance Management
Many of us struggle every day to do what we think is demanded of us - and there are still a group of people who feel that compared to their work schedule, there are not enough hours in a day. That takes a toll physically, mentally and economically and chronic stress can lead to an increase in blood pressure and stress hormones and perhaps can even be the cause of a heart disease.
If you feel that you have absolutely lost control over your day to day routine, do not throw out tantrums or be upset or go around with a dull face! You can always learn to survive the daily grind. Let us discuss about some ways to help you do it and survive.
Be prepared
Start your morning with a list of the things you need to do. That day - keep the list manageable and devote more time to accomplishing the tasks than to waste the time by thinking the time you will need for each job. Always reserve enough breathing room to handle emergencies. Every thing will lie in a scattered manner and all your efforts will be a farce if you try to do too many things at a single go. In such a case nothing will actually be completed. By finishing tasks one at a time you will attain a level of self satisfaction of reaching your day's goal slowly but steadily. This very thought will increase your productivity magically.
Never try to be too perfect!
A perfectionist, in any field, finds it difficult to do things quietly. Doing each and every thing perfectly requires a lot of thinking, time as well as energy. Perfectionist cannot bring themselves to do it; they can never distinguish between what's important and what's not important. In short, they are unable to prioritize their work.
Know when to say ?NO? and always be straight forward and clear in saying so. If we always remain too busy, then we may not get around the important things to be done, which will give us our genuine satisfaction.
Never hesitate to ask for help:
It is a very common human psychology. Many of us are often afraid to seek help, because we feel it signals our lack of ability to manage affairs. But it is the facts that both by asking for and also by offering for help we strengthen our personal relations and lighten our loads.
Take time out:
Be considerate to yourself. No matter how much busy you may remain. If your pattern is to focus on the golden eggs, and neglect the goose very soon you will land up producing no golden eggs at all. So it is very mush essential to eat healthy and nutritious food and get enough sleep to keep yourself productive and active.
Both Webmarket Reports & Abhishek Lodha are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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