How to promote employee work-life balance in the workplace

Unhappy workers cost companies at least $450 billion dollars a year. This blog will show you 4 easy ways to turn those frowns upside down and reap the high-productivity benefits.

Work. It’s a fact of life. Whether you’re working to live, living to work, or working on a way to live without working, the two are inseparable.

Work-life balance is one of the hottest topics in business these days as more and more companies realize the benefits of happy, healthy employees. But the benefits it brings to a company are hard to quantify.

Or are they?

Turns out initiatives for employee work-life balance pay off big time, and not in the abstract ways you might think of.

Developing policies that show employees you’re invested in them and not just in how much they work is the key to increasing satisfaction, but it’s always easier said than done.

The good news is that modern technology makes it easier than ever to help companies balance the two, increase productivity, and save money.

Are you ready to invest in employee satisfaction? Here’s how to do it.

Why invest in work-life balance policies?

The modern office is a hive of activity, buzzing with tech-savvy employees expected to do more with less. The pressure is on. It’s no secret that modern workers crave a better balance between their career and personal lives, especially as the means to doing so become more readily available.

• 22% of people changed jobs last year due to work-life balance issues
• Only 13% of employees are actually engaged at work
• The cost of unhappiness at work: $450 billion + (that’s billion with a B)

Employee turnover, disengagement, toxicity in the workplace, and a myriad of other factors cost companies real dollars each year. On the flip side, policies to help balance the two out have worked like a charm.

• Happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity in a University of Warwick study
• Productivity at Google rose 37% after employee satisfaction initiatives

OK, great! So helping employees achieve the zen-like state of work-life balance is key, but how do you actually do it?

Here are some work-life balance tips for managers that have proven to pay back big dividends:

• Remote work – No commute. No traffic. Perhaps even no geographic restrictions. Remote working is becoming the hottest trend because it’s simple to implement, requires no overhaul, saves companies money on overhead expenses, and makes workers happy. It’s especially great for parents who want to spend time with children. One study showed that remote workers were consistently happier than the average employee.

Tip: Combining Soda PDF with Office 365 (MS Word, Excel, etc.) makes setting up the infrastructure for work-from-home arrangements a breeze. Create docs with Office 365 and share them with Soda PDF, give them your John Hancock with E-Sign, store them in the cloud, and allow differing levels of security access to different users without extra authenticating legwork. Also, the collaborative powers of the software make it so that you don’t need teams to ever sit next to each other.

• Measure milestones, not minutes – Netflix shocked the world when it decided to measure employee benchmarks rather than hours worked. We aren’t suggesting letting them come and go as they please, but allowing for flexible work schedules tied to their productivity is a great way to get more out of each person in less time.
• Restricting hours – 91% of employees have worked more than 40 hours in a week, sometimes without pay. Be clear that you expect work to stop in the office (unless they work from home!) unless it’s urgent. Not hounding anyone once they’ve left the office is one of the best work-life balance strategies.
• Pick-your-perk schemes – Who doesn’t love customization? 89% of millennials preferred perks to pay raises, and letting them customize their own helps engage them more. More vacation, tuition reimbursement, or even making them earn their work from home hours will increase satisfaction.

Helping employees achieve work-life balance pays back big dividends for the companies that invest in their best asset. These tips are already in use and perking up employees’ spirits around the globe.

Ready to use powerful software to make it easier? Talk to Soda PDF today.