How Having Life-Work Balance Can Help Advance Your Career

Many people assume that companies couldn’t care less about life-work balance. On the contrary, many companies are now trying to make sure their employees are healthy, happy, and balanced. As a result, they want to make sure that any new employees they take on (or anyone they promote) embody these same characteristics. The reality is only by being a balanced employee can you attract a truly balanced employer. (Note: We call it life-work balance, as we believe only by putting life first, can you start to have life-work balance.) Below you’ll find some reasons why companies want balanced employees as well as how life-work balance can help advance your career. These are all ideas you can implement at the office and at home.

 

Start hitting the gym again

If you’ve been thinking about getting healthier you can now add another reason to the list as to why you should: companies know that healthy people help make them profits. Think about it: healthy people take less sick days, look good, and have a lot of energy. More specifically, companies know that unhealthy people cost them their bottom line. To put it into numbers unhealthy employees cost companies $1.1 trillion in lost productivity. Many companies have tried to combat this by implementing healthy initiatives that encourage employees to take care of themselves, like lunchtime yoga or run clubs. If it’s been a while since you’ve hit the gym you may want to get yourself a new membership and stick to it. As a bonus, we all know that exercise helps us deal with stress, an attribute that is essential for high level jobs.

 

Practice determining priorities

Having priorities and acting accordingly not only helps you become less stressed, it also shows a company that you can handle getting the important stuff done. Furthermore, multitasking actually makes people less productive, so prioritizing allows you to follow through on your responsibilities at your highest capacity. You can start by ridding your schedule of anything that only makes you seem busy. For some this may mean leaving for lunch instead of working at their desk. For others it may require dropping committees they joined but have no interest in. Take a look at your calendar and start getting rid of anything that is not essential.

 

Learn how to outsource and delegate

At an executive level you will be expected to outsource and delegate to other employees or departments, however this a skill that many people can’t seem to master. If you have the tendency to want to do everything by yourself, stop it and start asking for help. By delegating to others you give yourself the space to tackle your most important tasks for the company. It also lifts a weight off of your shoulders when you realize you don’t have to do everything by yourself. This is also a skill that hiring managers are really looking out for so make sure to give them concrete examples of how you delegate tasks to others.

 

Start setting clear boundaries

Employees will often times find themselves stressed and unproductive because they didn’t put proper boundaries in place. For instance, maybe they have an open door policy and people pop in at all hours of the day, causing them to lose their focus and take on too much. Or, perhaps they are still answering work emails in the wee hours of the night. Neither of these scenarios help employees get their work done and could have negative long term effects on their health. The only way to combat this is to set boundaries and stick to them. In order to get the most out of your career, you must make sure you’re taking care of yourself. By implementing some of these strategies you not only start living a healthier life, you also express qualities that are needed in a leader.