The work-life balance has become incredibly difficult in a day and age where everything is available and accessible to anyone at any time if they have the internet. While being able to take work home can be nice, it also means your staff is probably struggling with those work-life boundaries a bit more. Asking your employees a few survey questions to support a better work-life balance for your team can improve team morale, reduce burnout, and increase employee retention. Let’s look at what questions our advisors supplied for you to include in your next survey.
Don’t Ask for a Name
We’re going to open this up with a ‘what not to ask’ tip. Asking your staff what they envision when they think of a healthy work-life balance can be eye-opening. What you consider healthy and what they consider ideal may be two completely different things. Each staff member may be a bit different, and that’s okay! The point of this question isn’t to find a solution or a perfect answer but to gauge where your staff is at in terms of a work-life balance. However, it’s best not to ask for their name.
“Learning where your staff is at in terms of a work-life balance can be helpful,” says Steven Vigilante, Head of New Business Development at OLIPOP. “While people are more likely to be honest if it’s anonymous, it can be helpful to know at least what level or department they’re coming from if this is a large organization. Some positions may have a very different opinion of the work-life balance situation because of responsibilities. If you’re on a small team, leaving it completely anonymous is probably your best bet because you’re going to be able to receive more honest feedback.”
How Can We Support Your Mental Health?
This is a big question that can be left broad, or you could make it more specific to your team and the current services or options that are provided for your team in terms of mental health. A big part of facilitating a better work-life balance is making sure your staff feels like their mental well-being is in a good place.
“If someone is mentally exhausted, their work-life balance can be thrown completely off,” says Jae Pak, Founder of Jae Pak MD Medical. “They enter this cycle where their personal life or work life struggles start to affect sleep and energy and everything they do. So whether your staff needs mental health services to help with personal matters or to manage the stress of the job, it’s important that your staff know you’re serious about supporting their mental well-being. A big part of this could even allow for extra ‘sick’ time to make it to counseling appointments.”
What Supplies Would Make Your Life Easier at Work?
Sometimes, supporting your staff’s work-life balance could be as simple as providing better supplies in the office. If someone is constantly bringing work home with them so they can use software on their home computer or utilize tools that aren’t in the office, their work-life balance could be improved by ordering new supplies.
“Some fields are notorious for not providing enough supplies for their staff to manage their job and responsibilities well with the products provided,” says Cesar Cruz, Co-Founder of Sebastian Cruz Couture. “I immediately think of educators or anyone who’s working in a setting where creative mediums are needed for projects. Whether that’s graphic software, nicer paper, or colored ink in a printer, employers should be aware of what their staff is using outside of the office to complete projects because, if possible, they shouldn’t need to bring their own supplies in or take work home with them to accomplish their job.”
Is There Something We Could Do to Improve Your Work-Life Balance?
This question is very forward, but it’s a good way to gauge if someone already has a clear idea of something that needs to be done. If they’re able to immediately give an idea to improve a better work-life balance for their team, it’s likely they’ve thought about it for a while and possibly discussed things with coworkers as well.
“This question is always interesting because you’ll either receive vague answers because people haven’t thought much about it, or you’ll be given very similar answers because your whole team is feeling the same way about the situation and they’ve discussed the issue before,” says Omid Semino, CEO and Founder of Diamond Mansion. “If it’s the latter, you should definitely be exploring ways to achieve what’s being requested because it’s likely people have felt this way for a while and not felt comfortable enough to come forward.”
What Parts of This Job Infiltrate Your Life Outside the Office Most Frequently?
Understanding what parts of the job are following your staff home can help you pinpoint the things that need to change to promote a better work-life balance. If you’re receiving similar answers from several team members, you should probably investigate how and why these things are interfering with their work-life balance.
“The purpose of having time off is so we can recharge and rest for the work ahead of us,” says Max Schwartzapfel, CMO of Fighting For You. “However, we’ve entered a time where it is possible to work from home in nearly every industry, so some people are having a hard time with things. Asking your staff what it is they’re struggling with, or they feel the need to have firmer boundaries can be helpful.”
Can We Support Your Physical Health Better?
We’ve talked about mental health, and now we’re entering physical health. This could be preventative care, sick days, doctor’s appointments, or other physical health needs. Do your staff feel there is enough time in the day to stretch their legs and move around? Is there a way you can help your staff prioritize their own physical health? Some of your employees may feel too busy or be nervous about what the doctor may say. Encourage conversation and promote wellness in the workplace to support a work-life balance.
“It’s astonishing how many adults don’t go to annual exams and appointments with their doctors,” says Karim Hachem, VP of eCommerce at La Blanca. “Promote wellness in your workplace by reminding your staff to go to preventative and annual appointments or screenings. You can also encourage them to move and exercise through wellness programs such as step competitions or logging their time in the gym for rewards.”
Do You Feel You Have Enough Vacation Time?
Vacation time is a great thing but do your staff feel they’re receiving enough to maintain a good work-life balance? While you, as an employer, may feel that they get enough, there could be a different perspective from your staff.
“A big eye opener for many is learning their staff feels they don’t get enough holidays off,” says Michael Fischer, Founder of Elite HRT. “Say you have some parents on your team. They will find it challenging to access childcare, so they might use personal days to stay home with their kids. A work-life balance can look drastically different from one staff member to another in terms of vacation time, so you may want to look at extending vacation time or offering work-from-home options for special circumstances.”
How Can We Help You Set Boundaries?
This one is huge. Sometimes your staff needs to feel supported in their effort to create a healthy work-life balance and achieve that goal successfully. People may be great at identifying the boundaries that need to be set, but the actual implementation of them can be a bit challenging if they’re new habits.
“Check in to see if your team needs to be reassured that their new boundaries were okay,” says Maegan Griffin, Founder, CEO and nurse practitioner of Skin Pharm. “While it can seem odd to encourage your staff not to work, that’s sometimes what needs to happen. If you have staff that has previously been under the impression that not working outside of the office was frowned upon, it can be very difficult for those staff members to relearn healthy boundaries without fear of job loss or feeling guilty about personal time.”
Would a Flexible Workspace Make Your Balance Easier or More Difficult?
The result of this question may surprise you. While many people love to work from home, some people find that it makes the work-life balance even more challenging. While you may be able to save time by not commuting or working on your own time, it also means that you’re thinking about your work more often, and your home becomes your office.
“Some people need clearly defined work and life boundaries and don’t do well working from home,” says Asker A Ahmed, Director of iProcess Global Research. “On the flip side, you may have others that love the flexibility to be able to work from home so they can get their kids off the bus or work odd hours to make it to a fitness class they love to attend. It’s good as an employer to recognize that working from home may not actually help every person but offering the chance to choose a workspace on certain days could be a better option.”
How Can We Lead Better to Support a Work-Life Balance?
Team leaders have a lot of responsibilities and wear multiple hats throughout the day. One of these roles includes setting examples for your team. Because of this, it’s important to know how your staff feels you could do your job better to support a work-life balance. It’s important not to take offense to their feedback but to look at it proactively as a way to better yourself and your leadership methods.
“You can learn a lot by asking this question to your team,” says Juan Pablo Cappello, Co-Founder and CEO of Nue Life. “While you might think that offering to help them out by taking on some more responsibilities so they could have a better work-life balance would benefit them, but it could actually make them struggle more. They might feel bad about handing over responsibilities. So, reevaluate, set some extended deadlines, and readjust some expectations. It’s important as a leader to show your staff what a healthy work-life balance looks like by leading one yourself.”
Conclusion
Supporting a better work-life balance for your team can be challenging and require some creative thinking, but a great place to start is with a survey. Asking your staff questions like the ones above is a great way to get a feel for where you’re at as a team and what you could do better in the future. Look at this as a growth opportunity for the entire company and integrate team building and communication efforts into the process of supporting a better work-life balance for your team. And don’t forget to lead by example; this goes a long way no matter what situation you find yourself in.
INTEGRIS Health. (2019, June). Why don’t men see doctors? Integris. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://integrisok.com/resources/on-your-health/2019/june/why-dont-men-see-doctors
Morandin, G., & Russo, M. (2021, August 31). Better work-life balance starts with managers. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved September 27, 2022, from https://hbr.org/2019/08/better-work-life-balance-starts-with-managers
