Work / Life Balance

"Dear Susan, 

I'm struggling to find a healthy work-life balance, and it's affecting my personal life. How can I set boundaries at work without jeopardizing my career?

Signed, Frazzled."

Dear Frazzled, 

Not knowing the specific terms of your employment contract, I can offer some broad ideas that would be helpful for anyone facing work/life balance issues. 

Before we dive into this topic, please be aware that employment laws vary from state to state. In Pennsylvania, where I live, for example, if you are told to work overtime, you must comply or you can be fired on the spot. Additionally, all hourly workers and many salaried employees are eligible for overtime here if working more than 40 hours in a given week. 

Recognizing that this does not address your need for balance, I want to be sure you are getting what is coming to you. 

I see two possibilities that could be at the root of your challenge. 

1. Your employer mandates overtime and you must comply or lose your job.
2. To be valued in your work culture, you need to work all the time and never be “totally away” from your job. 

The first possible cause of imbalance is pretty clear cut. If you are mandated to work overtime, and if choosing not to comply is grounds for dismissal, you have a choice to make. If this decision is about choosing money or choosing  time, I believe you already have your answer. But, you will need the courage to act on it. 

Sometimes when we know exactly what we need to do, we freeze, unable to move forward. Maybe the mere thought of changing jobs makes your palms sweat. We all prefer to do things in which we feel confident and competent. 

But are you too comfortable? Have you been challenged to learn something significantly new recently?  It is possible that 10 years of experience can really equal one year of experience repeated ten times. Knowing that life doesn’t stand still for any of us, if we are not growing, what are we doing? Are your skills keeping up with the ever-changing technologies and the new opportunities these create?

The second possible root cause is more challenging because it involves people beyond yourself. Look around you, and try to notice if others might also be experiencing signs of stress.  Are you noticing fatigue, poor emotional control, illness, absences, or people that seem to be under-performing?  

If you are noticing these issues, you are not the only one feeling burnout from putting in too many hours. Others have been swept up into the workaholic culture and it is taking a toll. 

I am not recommending that you stage a coup, or announce a call to unionize, or for you to activate a negative grapevine. Has it occurred to you that the leaders of your organization may be just as caught up in this culture as you? 

Someone needs to exhibit courage and address the elephant in the room. That would be YOU. And you thought looking for a new job was scary! To be truthful, this is not as scary as it may initially sound. Here is a clear path to navigate this opportunity:

Begin by documenting your observations and doing some research to build into a proposal. You are looking for two kinds of data.  First, spend several weeks observing and documenting signs for how this culture is affecting the team, the work, and more:

• A drop in the quality of output
• Customer complaints on the rise
• On time delivery or missed deadlines increasing
• New team conflicts
• Discussion of conflicts at home (the outside team -  ripples on the pond)
• Poor work output
• Turnover
• Team complaints
• Team sick days on the rise 
• Team leader complaints 
• Loss of customers 
• Etc. 

Next, bring data on the impact of working less on productivity, team innovation, turnover, etc. Here are a few good places to get started:

1. Check out the results of SHRM’s 30 year study following 800 US companies and the impact of work/life balance on a diverse workforce. An incredible 64% of employees said they’d forgo a $30,000 raise if they could work from home! 
2. Read about the impact of long hours spent at a desk…for example, 64% of employees in 2023 suffered from burnout, 72% of which admitted it hampered their job performance.
3. According to APA, burnout  is responsible for a 180% increased risk of developing depressive disorders and an 84% increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.
4. SHRM’s research suggests that burned out employees are three times more likely to be searching for another job. 
5. HBR suggests workplace stress costs the U.S. economy more than $500 billion dollars, and, each year, 550 million work days are lost due to stress on the job.
6. According to Time Magazine, workers hit 100% of their productivity targets in 80% as many hours. 
7. And finally, Owl Labs reports on a Microsoft Japan 4 day work week and found a 40% productivity boost across the business. 

Make your point with an eye-catching presentation that supports a culture that is more flexible, and honors both work hours AND non-work hours. Bring in data related to a four-day workweek. Consider inviting a representative from a local company that offers these to speak to the impact on employees, productivity, profitability, etc. 

This is just the beginning of what you will find through your own research. I can summarize my own web research on this topic by saying that employing a four-day workweek is a win-win-win-win-win. 

• The employee wins by getting badly needed flexibility in their life that creates balance and reduces stress and serious illnesses. 
• Companies win by having reduced turnover, sick days, and higher levels of productivity. 
• The outside team wins (the employees' families) by having a parent or partner home to take care of things that can only happen on a business day. 
• The customer ultimately wins as employee commitment and engagement increase, providing a superior level of quality and service. 
• The environment wins, by reducing the CO2 commuting emissions by 20% from your organization. 

Recognize you cannot put executives on the spot to make an immediate on-the-spot decision on these ideas. Ask for a follow up appointment that allows for a reasonable amount of time for discussion and decisions. 

To be honest, the data on these initiatives is not a secret. Yet, companies are slow to jump on the bandwagon. Be prepared that your organization may not be willing to adopt any of these ideas. 

If that is the case, you’ll have to decide if your health (and your life) is more important to you than all the benefits of your current job. The simplest decision making tool that I know of is the old Ben Franklin decision-making approach: 

Put “get a new job” at the top of the page. Draw a line down the middle and put a + at the top of one column and a - at the top of the other. Brainstorm all the positives and negatives and add them to the appropriate column. Add a weighting system of importance to each item. When you've run out of ideas for both columns, add the weighting system in each column up. You have a decision. 

If your work continues to challenge you to grow your skills, and you love what you do, the obvious choice would be to help educate the executive team about the impact burnout is potentially having and to encourage them to explore options that will benefit both the company and their team. 

Wishing you all the best in this exciting opportunity!

-Susan Stamm