How to Encourage Work-Life Balance as a Team Manager: Best Practices and Strategies

In today’s evolving world, work-life has become more of a priority to masses of employees in the workforce. As a result, many organizations have now had to accommodate these preferences to retain top talent and keep employees satisfied. Unfortunately, encouraging work-life balance isn’t always straightforward and it can be tricky to know where to begin.

Thankfully, the task of making work-life balance a reality for your employees doesn’t have to be an overly complicated undertaking. Having some guidance around the process can make it easier for you to effectively lead your team.

Change the Culture in Your Office

If you’re at a loss for where to begin on your journey of encouraging work-life balance, changing the culture in your office is an amazing place to start. The more you normalize the idea of work-life balance, the more your employees will feel comfortable fully cutting off from work at the end of the workday.

Some simple ways to start altering your office’s culture are by encouraging breaks and time off for your employees. The more you do this, the more the attitudes and atmosphere will change to reflect a better relationship with work and the office. This being the case, this is a great first step for encouraging more work-life balance in your office.

Include Everyone in the Conversation

When it comes to truly changing the attitudes of your employees, it’s key that you don’t leave anyone out. This means you’ll have to go the extra mile to ensure that all employees — from the most senior to the least senior — are included in the conversation about finding more balance in life.

To make inclusion easier, it can help to create a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committee to ensure that nobody is being left out. Once you’ve made it clear to each and every employee that you want them to start creating more balance in their lives, the other changes you implement will be more likely to work.

Be a Work-Life Balance Role Model

As a leader in your organization, employees look to you for inspiration about how they should be conducting themselves. As such, it’s important that you not only preach about work-life balance but also engage in it. The more you’re able to lead by example, the more likely your team will be to follow suit and start creating healthy boundaries in their lives.

Some keyways you can show your team that you’re serious about work-life balance is by completely disconnecting from your digital workspaces after working hours and leaving the office as soon as the workday ends. If they aren’t already, your employees will likely follow suit and start cutting themselves off from work after working hours are over.

Set Office-Wide Goals for Work-Life Balance

While the concept of work-life balance seems simple, when asked to practice it, your employees may not know how to take actionable steps. To ensure that none of your employees are feeling this type of uncertainty, it’s vital that you craft and communicate specific work-life balance goals that they can work toward reaching.

These goals can include things such as not logging onto digital workspaces after work for one month straight and never staying at the office after work hours for more than five minutes. The more concrete, actionable goals you’re able to create for your employees, the easier it will be for them to truly cultivate work-life balance in their lives.

Offer Remote Options

While it may have been rare a decade ago, today, remote work has become a normalized process that you can find in nearly every industry. In addition, this form of work can be extremely conducive to creating better work-life balance since it offers employees more flexibility which can greatly benefit mental health. This being the case, you can effectively encourage your employees to engage in better work-life balance practices by offering them the option to work remotely.

By taking this significant step, you’re communicating to your team that you’re serious about them living more fulfilling and well-balanced lives. As a result, your employees are more likely to take this to heart and start testing flexible work options to find the ones that best suit their lives.

Make Time Management a Priority

One of the most common reasons that employees overwork themselves and continue working after work is over is because they haven’t finished all of their necessary tasks. While this can sometimes be due to them being overloaded with a large amount of work, oftentimes it stems from poor time management.

To ensure that your employees aren’t running into this problem, it’s essential to equip them with effective time-management strategies that make them more efficient. Whether you share these tips in meetings, create formal training sessions, or simply communicate them during working hours, these techniques can radically transform the amount of work your employees complete during their workdays.

Measure Your Team’s Progress

Once you’ve started implementing a variety of strategies to encourage your employees to engage in better work-life balance practices, it’s vital that you measure your team’s progress. If you find that certain people are struggling or certain goals aren’t being met, you can readjust your approach.

To effectively iterate on your strategies, it can be helpful to examine progress periodically. Depending on your specific office, this can be weekly or monthly. The more you’re able to readjust your strategies and make them more effective, the closer you’ll be able to get to an office with an amazing work-life balance.

Work-Life Balance is Attainable for Your Team

As a team leader, you’re more than capable of encouraging your team to stop overworking themselves and engage in proper work-life balance. By engaging in these key strategies, you can transform the attitudes of your employees and ensure that they’re balancing the priorities in their life in a healthy manner.