1. Find out what employees’ needs are and what types of work/home conflicts your employees are experiencing.
2. Use a variety of methods such as exit interviews, focus groups and surveys.
3. Focus on organisational culture and whether it enables or constrains work-life balance.
4. A work-life balance must be integrated at all levels of the organisation, from managers to the lower grades.
5. Use time management, delegation, and prioritise work to avoid overload, and reduce both stress and hours worked, while maintaining the same level of productivity.
6. Set up work-life policies such as flexible working hours, self-rostering, flexible working locations, special leave availability, career breaks, counselling and childcare/ eldercare subsidies.
7. Consider implementing a benefits system, which sets out a list of priced benefits, and each employee can ‘buy’ whichever benefits they choose with their fixed annual allowance or for a cut in salary.
8. Have a suggestion scheme, so employees can put forward their ideas about what can be introduced or changed.
9. Inform and train managers so they can help employees to choose the right combination.
10. Work-life issues should be incorporated into the annual training plans and performance appraisals.
11. Communicate the policies and benefits, consider adding them to a handbook that all staff have access to.
12. Evaluate work-life balance success by measuring employee and customer satisfaction.
Do's and Don'ts
Do:
Ensure that you work-life policy is inclusive and that every individual can benefit from it.
Give the work-life initiative a catchy title.
Communicate the policy and make sure everyone knows what is available.
Make sure that supervisors are supportive and do not discourage employees from making flexible arrangements.
Minimise red tape so that signing up to new arrangements is quick and easy.
Don’t:
Try to “impose” a work-life balance, or introduce it without consultation and co-operation.
Assume that you only need to target women with children or employees with elderly dependants.
Think that flexibility is only appropriate to certain work settings.
Discriminate.
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