Work/Life Balance During the Recession

The Access HR Team | 1 Jun 2009 1:19 PM

Due to the economic crisis, companies are under pressure and are looking at how to reduce their costs as the severity of the global financial crisis increases. 

Unfortunately for some, the biggest costs within a business are usually within their payroll.  The dilemma in this lies with cutting employees, including good and talented staff were hard to come by in the first place. 

Some organizations in this situation have had to reduce their staff and hand over the workload to other employees.  This strategy can be seen as a positive and a negative. 


Employees will have the opportunity to develop and learn new skills or be stressed by the increased workload put upon them which can be detrimental to their health and well-being.

Luckily, a large percentage of companies are generating strategies to cut costs without having to make any of their employees redundant.  A lot of businesses are opting to cut their working days to four days a week, in order to keep all their employees.  This strategy influences the concept of work / life balance.  This concept means different things for different people.

‘Work Life Balance’ is described as the balance between an individual’s work and
personal life.

 

However, in some organization redundancies cannot be avoided.  This may lead to employees taking on extra workload and working longer hours to appear to be ‘on the mark’ and committed to their work in view of avoiding the possibility of retrenchment.

Work / Life balance strategies enable employers and employees to be more productive in their job and healthy in their work and personal lives.  There are many signs of imbalance in employees and these may include:

The opportunity of employees having flexible working hours can be a welcomed strategy to the business, even in the midst of the economic crisis.  Some benefits of a better work / life balance are listed below:

If you would like further information on how to improve the work / life balance of yourself or your employees, please do not hesitate to contact Access HR on 03 9544 1899.