Employers expect more and more from their workforce as economic factors mean downsizing the number of staff, reduced budgets, and a general expectation to do more with less each year. The impact of this on young employees on graduate programs and other employees is that you may be expected to shoulder the burden for an increasingly large workload. However, there are some factors to remember which means you can still be considered as someone who delivers at work while also achieving a good work-life balance. It is important to be realistic with your expectation of work-life balance. Some professions would be more accommodating than others and this needs to be considered at the recruitment stage before applying for graduate programs. This post is focussing on establishing an appropriate work-life balance for your new job, such as a graduate program.
Top 5 Tips for a good work-life balance
1. When you leave the office or finish working for the day at home, switch off both mentally and electronically. Turn off those laptops and mobiles.
2. Don’t set up your work email on your smartphone. It is all too easy to have your work emails on your iPhone and have a quick check before you go to bed or at the weekend.
3. Get used to saying ‘no’. It is ok to protect your work-life balance and push back at times when you can’t take on more work.
4. Make people aware of what your core hours are even if you have a flexible working set up. Don’t set a precedent where people think they can get hold of you at 7 am or 8 pm if you don’t want that. It’s up to you to drive that.
5. Enjoy your evenings and weekends and have things to do even if it just means finishing work and doing half an hour’s exercise. Divide your day up and know when it finishes and then switch into personal time mode.
In short Divide your time from your work time so avoid being contactable via smartphones etc on evenings and weekends unless it is operationally critical. This will help protect your work-life balance.