In the context of a labor market offering jobs with high responsibility and a society where more and more individuals put career on first place, the concept of balance between work and personal life arises. All these things raise the problem of a correct prioritization between these two very important aspects of life.
Thus, we have on the one hand career and willingness to ascension, on the other hand, we have the personal life, family, friends and leisure time. The question is: how to strike a balance between the two?
The increasingly more common desire for people is to put a fair balance between the two aspects, and this led to the need to design policies that provide employees the opportunity to achieve balance between work and personal life. Of course, the employer is not directly responsible for ensuring this balance, but can encourage it through a fair package of benefits and clearly and correctly stated rules.
Flexible work schedule
A risk that employers who include in a job description the expression "flexitime" may expose to is that employees or applicants understand that they have the right to come and go whenever they want. In reality, the policy of a flexible work schedule should include the opportunity to work in shifts if possible, so the employee will be able to have time to manage personal needs.
Obviously, not every industry can afford such a policy and when you need a permanent teamwork it’s not fair that one of the team members works from home or on a different time schedule, making it hard to communicate and collaborate.
Paid days off
Any employee has the right to a legal number of paid vacation days per year. Most people schedule these days off for the current year and enjoy them. There are companies in which employees have the opportunity to let their vacation days for the next year, donate them to other colleagues or give them up, work instead and being paid extra.
Such practices should be permitted by an employer in a certain limit to avoid employees willing to give up all the granted legal days off to overexert, which would lead to low productivity.
Requesting an employee to work in his free time
With the development of new technologies the possibility of being permanently connected to what happens in the workplace emerged. A work phone or smartphones with access to work email are some ways companies can keep employees constantly connected to what happens in the workplace.
It’s understandable, considering that there are fields or jobs that require a higher degree of involvement. However, if an employee is on vacation, it’s better to set an out of the office message and not to be disturbed unless necessary and if it is an emergency.
Last but not least, the employee must be able to request unpaid leave, to be able to solve personal problems that can not be postponed and require active involvement, such as those related to graduation or illness of someone close.
BIA HR TEAM