Balance icon Balance

Acceptance of the need for a sense of harmony between the demands of personal life, family and work, and the recognition that everyone has multiple roles outside of work.

“Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.” – Sigmund Freud

Overview

What is balance?

Balance is present in a work environment where there is acceptance of the need for a sense of harmony between the demands of personal life, family and work. This reflects the fact that everyone has multiple roles: as workers, parents, partners, etc. This complexity of roles is enriching and allows fulfillment of individual strengths and responsibilities, but conflicting responsibilities can lead to role conflict or overload.

An organization with good balance would be able to state that:

  • The organization encourages workers to take their entitled breaks (e.g. lunchtime, sick time, vacation time, earned days off, parental leave).
  • Workers are able to reasonably meet the demands of personal life and work.
  • The organization promotes life-work harmony.
  • Workers can talk to their supervisors when they are having trouble maintaining harmony between their life and work.
  • Workers have energy left at the end of most work days for their personal life.

Work environments that recognize the need for work-life balance contribute to workers feeling valued and happier – both at work and at home. An understanding of the importance of harmony between work and personal life requires greater workplace flexibility. This flexibility helps minimize conflict by allowing workers to accomplish tasks that are necessary in their daily lives. Balance enhances well-being, reduces stress and reduces the possibility that home issues will spill over into work, or vice versa. This protects physical and psychological health by allowing staff to maintain their concentration, confidence, responsibility and sense of control at work. Organizationally, this translates into enhanced worker commitment and job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviours and job performance.

Job stress is on the rise, and workers with higher levels of job stress are more likely to be dissatisfied with work and be absent – either physically or mentally. One primary source of stress is conflict between work and family roles. When work-family conflict occurs, health and well-being are undermined. This imbalance can lead to constant tiredness, bad temper and inability to progress. These can, in turn, lead to additional stress-related illnesses, such as higher cholesterol, depressive symptoms and overall decreased health. The impact on the organization is increased costs due to benefit payouts, absenteeism, disability and turnover.

FAQs

  • Have management support and model positive work-life balance.
  • Facilitate balance by providing opportunities that promote health and harmony (e.g. on-site gym/fitness facilities, provision of personal time off, options for unpaid leaves).
  • Offer supports (e.g. appropriate technology and resources) for staff who work from home/off-site.

  • Provide information on creating and sustaining a balanced approach to the demands of work and personal life (e.g. enhanced resiliency, coping and problem-solving skills).
  • Provide training opportunities for leaders to support both themselves and their team in the management of work-life demands.
  • Provide a range of educational opportunities (internal and external) on non-job-related topics (e.g. attending “lunch-and-learn” sessions on childcare or eldercare issues).

  • Ensure staff is aware of the commitment to balance as being integral to overall health and productivity.
  • Ensure existing company and community resources and programs that support work-life harmony are easily accessible to staff.
  • Support staff who wish to share non-work-related accomplishments (e.g. birth of children, major anniversaries, accomplishment of lifelong goals).

  • Provide flexible work arrangements, where possible (e.g. compressed work schedules, work from home, virtual conferencing, part-time work, contract opportunities, job sharing).
  • Provide appropriate support for shift workers (e.g. limit split shifts, provide advance notice of shift changes, permit trading of shifts).
  • Offer personal and family support for both child and elder care (e.g. comprehensive benefits, daycare, fitness facility access, health education, family responsibility leave).
  • Assess staff perceptions of the value of benefits when making decisions concerning these programs (e.g. provide flexible/opt-out options).
  • Offer opportunities to earn time off during peak work periods (e.g. to use during lower workload demand periods).
  • Encourage use of allocated time off.
  • Develop parameters around communication, availability and technology use (e.g. email, phone) during off work periods and have leaders model this approach.

Action

Next steps: Helping employees achieve an adequate balance

A work environment where there is recognition of the need for balance between the demands of work, family and personal life.

  • greater staff satisfaction and morale
  • reduced staff stress and burnout
  • enhanced performance and productivity
  • reduced absenteeism and disability

  • Do issues related to employees’ work-life balance present a greater risk to particular groups of employees (e.g. new employees, certain jobs, shift workers, etc.)?
  • What are the strengths in your workplace in terms of employees’ work-life balance (e.g. what do you do well and what should you continue doing)?
  • What could your workplace do to improve in this area (e.g. what could you do more of and what could you do less of)?
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Balance is psychosocial factor 11 from CAN/CSA-Z1003-13/BNQ 9700-803/2013 – Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace. Retrieved from: https://www.csagroup.org/article/cancsa-z1003-13-bnq-9700-803-2013-r2018/. See also Guarding Minds at Work (Samra et al.): Retrieved from https://www.guardingmindsatwork.ca/resources.