How in the world do you achieve work-life balance when the world has changed due to the pandemic? Your assumptive world has been shattered and professional life has changed. For that matter, so has your personal life. For many, the workplace has moved to the kitchen table. For others, the hours spent in the actual workplace have increased, limiting time spent appreciating one’s nonwork life. Metaphorically, you need to navigate the new workplace landscape, without falling into the crevice caused by the pandemic. Your sands have shifted. Move cautiously to achieve work-life balance as you climb over the sand dune or drown in quicksand.
Reflection
Some professionals know that they are drowning in quicksand when they experience stomach aches, headaches, eat too much, or abuse alcohol or drugs. How would you know if you are drowning in quicksand?
When Two Worlds Collide
Your world revolves around life at work. A workplace functions as roles and responsibilities spin into each other. Job content is where you have control over your job performance and autonomy, which helps you do your job well. On the other hand, job context is where the organization has the control, such as being responsible for working conditions and salary. Working arrangements are in place as well as employment relationships. The world also revolves around nonwork life, home, family, and friends. If you do not have work life balance, job performance will suffer. In the perfect world, you are engaged in work life and nonwork life with minimal conflict between your role at home and at work. However, this is often not the case. The stress of two worlds colliding can be overwhelming.
Work-life balance is:
- a concept that focuses on calculating time working with what you need to accomplish in your personal life, without sacrificing the quality of your job performance.
- achieved when organizations create flexible work arrangements for their employees.
- a personal preference that helps you make the balancing act of work and home life more manageable.
Remote Working and Flexible Working Schedule
Remote working is where the employee works at home or another place that is not considered the usual place to do one’s job. There has been an increase in remote working. For many, their job is no longer a traditional fixed place. This detaches many employees from an organizational workplace to a remote working environment, usually one’s home. This shift is linked to a commitment to one’s job, more job satisfaction, and job‐related well‐being. Work flexibility is a family-friendly policy that offers control over working time duration and location of work. It departs from the customary time and place of the job and is not about reducing working time. Work flexibility offers time variation to work, place to work, and job share.
Reflection
If your organization offered work flexibility, how would you put it into practice?
Barbara is a leading authority and best-selling author on managing burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. As a nationally recognized keynote speaker, she motivates audiences to build their resilience and create work-life balance. Her programs help leaders and teams manage workplace chronic stressors and get over burnout at work.
Barbara's newest book, "But I Didn't Say Goodbye: Helping Families After a Suicide", is available now on Amazon - https://amzn.to/2FwS6JI
• Three weeks prior to giving birth to triplets, her father died by suicide. Her story was featured in the Emmy award winning documentary, Fatal Mistakes, Families Shattered by Suicide narrated by Mariette Hartley. Many employees are grieving personal loss. She offers programs for leaders on lost productivity and performance while managing grief at work.
• As a sought-after keynote speaker who has presented to over 500 groups since 1991, including corporations, state and national associations and non-profit organizations, Barbara offers work-life balance strategies for leaders to implement right away. With clarity and humor, her speaking engagements are designed to give audiences powerful and practical strategies of work-life balance, wellbeing, and self-care that can be implemented immediately.
• Barbara is a Board-Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress and Diplomate with the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. She received a Bachelor of Science in psychology and a Master of Arts degree in community health, with a concentration in thanatology, both from Brooklyn College.
Email: BarbaraRubel@BarbaraRubel.com
Website: www.barbararubel.com
