Many offices are moving back into a 100% back-to-office for work policy. Although some companies have chosen to continue to adopt the hybrid approach, there still is a need to help employees achieve better work-life integration.
In the course of providing Wellness solutions to organisations as their Wellbeing partner, Actxa Wellness has delivered the session "Work-Life Integration in Today's Hybrid" multiple times. Through research as well as insights gathered from HR managers and our workshop attendees, we want to take this opportunity to share the three simple steps employers and HR managers can adopt to get things in motion for the employees within your organisation.
1. Self-awareness
Research shows that although 95% of people think they’re self-aware, only 10% to 15% actually are truly self-aware [1].
Some areas and questions we can ask ourselves would be:
How self-aware are we to understand and know what makes us tick?
What are our stress triggers?
What do we count as wellness activities and in what way do they elevate our wellbeing?
What meaning and purpose do we have in life and in the work that we do?
What is our life's mission?
These are some tough reflection questions that many people have not had the time nor space to think about. But they are important for an individual to know what they need, from job alignment and satisfaction, to career aspirations, to preferred work arrangement.
Specific to work-life integration, encourage (and facilitate) your employees to take a few weeks to pen down the moments where they felt energised and invigorated at work. And also do the same for moments where they felt they were hitting the lows. They will then be able to start seeing the patterns from there.
If they find it challenging to trust their own assessment, they can ask a coworker whose judgement they respect: “When do you see me thriving at work and when do I fare poorly?”
If the organisation is able to adopt an approach to encourage self-awareness of every employee, whether through structured programming or self-paced independent learning, the right culture will be put in place. There will be an upward and positive move towards better collective work-life Integration.
2. Manager Support
Of course if employees are self-aware and know what they need, but are not supported by their direct managers to help manage better work-life integration, it will be considered a nett zero move in the right direction.
Senior leaders of the organisation must speak the same language and walk the talk. This will allow for a top-down message where the focus will be on self-awareness towards each individual employee’s needs and how respective managers can support with work-life integration. The challenge will always be managing commercial and business needs with the need for better work-life integration. But as long as this is openly addressSo… how can managers support?
If the organisation takes a coaching approach towards employee growth and practises transparent communication of policies and implementation of programmes, managers will be equipped to tease out the best case scenarios through self-aware employee assessment.
3. Wellbeing Resources
Wellbeing resources could be anything from access to a counsellor and/or coach, an employee assistance programme (EAP), reading material through in-app or blog subscription, learning & development through an internal learning management system (LMS), or any other form of wellness engagement by an internal wellness committee or external wellbeing partner. They could be all of the above and more that are also not mentioned here.
If you’d like some help on kick-starting this for your organisation, feel free to drop us a message and we will be happy to put you in the right direction.
Next Steps
So yes, it’s as easy as 1 - 2 - 3, but will require the commitment of both employees and the organisation.
Wishing you all the best in helping your employees achieve better work-life integration!
About the Writer:
Alex Loh is a consultant and coach in the fitness, health and wellness space, business owner, podcast host, loving husband and doting father. His compass is guided by the desire to help people, where his focus is to help businesses and organisations harness fitness, health and wellness as the vehicle to build sustainable solutions. This led him to Co-found Actxa Wellness, where he leads as CEO.
Connect more with Alex Loh here ➡️ https://linktr.ee/alexlohsengyue
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