Are work and life really that separate? What does Work/Life Balance really mean? We’ve had several conversations the past few months around whether or not work and life truly are separate. We’ve blended our homes quite literally with work, with opening up our privacy to the employment space, our Bosses, our Peers, and our Clients in the Pandemic Era. We did so without choice when the Pandemic struck, but is there choice now? Was there always and we failed to embrace it? Here are some questions to consider as you move through these next difficult decisions:
- Employers and Employees: How much control do you need or wish to have and what are you willing to let go of?
- Employers: What could you not live with employees feeling about their Employee Experience? What would you lose sleep over?
- Employers: What insights have you gained from any surveys you’ve conducted and what options does it give you to improve on, enhance, or move in a different direction toward engagement? What can or will you Start, Stop, Continue?
So is there balance? Can there be? Work/Life Balance is improved when work and life aren’t so separate. Hear us out…Work is not our full identity, but it does encompass a lot of who we are, especially when it’s rooted in our Why. We all aspire to have purpose and meaning in life and work, and there is certainly an intersection there! There is also the consideration that what happens at work (whether good or bad) impacts our home lives. This is why Employee Engagement and creating and fostering strong teams and cultures, having solid systems and processes, and investing in organizational resources (including supporting and building leadership capabilities) are so important.
As we look at how we want to grow in life and career, we may find ourselves on a Mentorship path. That Mentorship could be formal or informal, internal or external. Think about the impacts such an arrangement can and does have on both work and life. Our work satisfaction and engagement has a direct impact on how we show up at home too, and home will impact how we show up in the workplace. When we embrace the idea that work and home are not so separate at the end of the day, we allow our teams to show up as their full selves and we are empathetic to their humanness.
Now, of COURSE we support and advocate for Self Care and some level of separation between the two. We just encourage you to consider how intertwined the two worlds are, to best support your employees on the path to engagement. By understanding what’s important to them and that outside factors do play a role in our work lives, but also that work lives play a role in our home lives. The two may not be fully-symbiotic but they are aligned without a doubt. This is particularly important and under scrutiny at this stage of work and the future of work, given the insights from the Pandemic Era. It requires us to think and operate differently than the ways of the past. At the end of the day, we should aspire to practice good Self Care and to be connected enough to our peers and colleagues to create and foster safe, engaged Cultures, but to also be able to disconnect at the end of a day.
CEPHR Happenings
OFFER: We’re always here to support you! Contact us for more information if you are a new leader looking for some Coaching support. We often find that newly-promoted leaders, moving from Individual Contributor roles into People Leaders may get left behind by processes and the speed at which organizations can move. If you are looking for some support and ways to develop your skills and to engage your team as a new leader, this offer is for YOU!
- CEPHR’s CEO & Founder Tiffany Castagno shares tools on Effectiveness for Small HR Teams on a Webinar hosted by Star Staffing on July 13th.
- We have begun development on a new product in collaboration with one of our Strategic Alliance Partners and while it’s in its very early stages, we’re excited at the progress and what it will bring to our clients and Community in the future to continue supporting Workplace Culture, leadership, teams, Employer Brands, and business infrastructure. Stay tuned for more updates in the future!
- We’ve also been building and delivering many new and existing Workshops, Webinars, and Trainings and have been excited and grateful for the amazing feedback! These products and services have been so popular that we’re working on building them into a Leadership Library along with other curated content.