Workplaces as Engines of Mental Health and Well-Being - 3. Work-Life Harmony

Essential 3: Work-life harmony

This is the third newsletter in which I explore Essentials in the U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being.[1]

The Framework can be viewed as a starting point for organisations in updating and institutionalising policies, processes, and practices to best support the mental health and well-being of employees.

Five Essentials for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being

Source: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/workplace-mental-health-well-being.pdf

Last week we explored Connection and Community and this week we will look at Essential 3: Work-Life Harmony.

Essential 3: Work-life harmony

Every employee must be provided with both flexibility and autonomy to choose where they work, when they work and how they work. Employees will be more motivated, engaged, and productive. Organisations must treat their employees as people first and foremost. They have many needs, roles, and responsibilities outside of work and must be able to choreograph work around those and not the other way around. This could include routine medical care; unexpected issues that require attention; caregiving for children, older parents, or other dependents; and attendance at regular and unplanned appointments.

When professional and personal needs can live in harmony, employees report greater satisfaction with their work and life and experience fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.[2]

The Work-life Harmony components in the framework are:

·       Provide more autonomy over how work is done

·       Make schedules as flexible and predictable as possible

·       Increase access to paid leave

·       Respect boundaries between work and non-work time

Provide more autonomy over how work is done

While employee autonomy over how work is done should always have been imperative, it has become more so as many employees have experienced a degree of autonomy whilst working remotely during the pandemic.

When employees have control over where they work, when they work and how they work, it can mitigate personal and professional conflicts. It also promotes trust in that leaders who provide this autonomy, are saying “I trust you.” They are trusting employees to get work done and deliver on outcomes as opposed to hours worked. Employees in turn trust their leader not to micromanage, monitor, or check up on how work is being done.

Employees, having experienced the benefits that harmonious integration of personal and professional lives brings want more of the same. Flexibility became the buzzword during the pandemic but flexibility without autonomy is pointless. Employees must be given flexibility but also the autonomy to exercise it in whichever way is best for them.

Jabra researched over 5000 knowledge workers around the world and found that 59% reported that “flexibility” is more important to them than salary or other benefits. 77% said they would prefer to work for a company that gives them the flexibility to work from anywhere. 61% reported that they would prefer it if management allowed team members to come into the office when they need to and work from home when they need to. The data shows that the flexibility employees want is conditional on their ability to exercise it in a way that fits them. It's conditional upon autonomy.

Make schedules as flexible and predictable as possible

Many workers are subject to variable and unpredictable work hours and scheduling demands.

A Brookings Institute analysis found that, in the leisure and hospitality industry, three-quarters of all workers receive their schedules less than one month in advance, with most receiving notice less than two weeks in advance.[3]

Unstable and unpredictable scheduling is linked to increased income volatility and an increased risk of economic hardship, which can degrade physical and mental health.[4] For example, while it may not always be possible to predict job needs and schedules, unstable schedules can make it difficult to obtain childcare and transportation.

Irregular work schedules can lead to increased psychological stress and poor sleep quality which can be linked to a host of negative health outcomes.

Schedule irregularity can also lead to personal-professional conflicts that adversely affect relationships both in and out of the workplace, including behavioural and mental health challenges in children of working parents.

Organisations must provide employees with schedules that are flexible and as predictable as possible.

Increase access to paid leave

Paid leave includes paid sick leave; paid family and medical leave, including paid parental leave for pregnancy and post-partum care; and paid time off for holidays.

Paid sick leave that is unequal or with limited access, can lead to a higher percentage of employees working while sick and the spread of infection at work, as well as decreased productivity, burnout, and labour shortages.

Provision of paid sick and other types of leave can positively affect the physical and mental health of employees and their families, improve retention, and reduce the costs associated with turnover.

This LinkedIn article – Paternity Leave: 30 Things I Learned in 3 Months - from my stepson, Christopher Lewis, captures the benefits of paid paternity leave and as Christopher puts it “It was the best three months of my life.” How is that for your mental well-being?

Respect boundaries between work and non-work time

Employees have a greater sense of well-being when leaders and managers set, respect, and model clear boundaries between the time at work and time off work.

Employees need and are entitled to the time they need to rest and optimise their health, productivity, and creativity, without the fear of missing work demands.

Organisations must have policies to limit digital communication outside of work hours, such as after a specific time and on weekends.

In some organisations, employees have won the “right to disconnect” from work. The Victorian Police Force now has a clause included in the Victoria Police Enterprise Agreement 2019 (Agreement).

In essence, the clause directs the employer to respect an employee’s period of leave and rest days and provides that the employer is not permitted to contact an employee outside of the employee’s agreed working hours (unless it is a genuine emergency or welfare matter).

Under the clause, an employee now has the right to refuse to respond or engage with any after-hours contact by the employer unless the employee is in receipt of an “availability allowance”, which is paid for every hour the employee is off duty and ready to be contacted.

In many countries it has been made law – employers are banned from contacting employees outside work hours. Counties include Portugal, Belgium, France, Italy, Philippines, Slovakia, Northern Ireland and Canada’s province of Ontario.

Wrap

Next week I will explore more Essentials and components of the framework.

 

[1] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2022/10/20/us-surgeon-general-releases-new-framework-mental-health-well-being-workplace.html

[2] https://mhanational.org/4mind4body-work-life-balance

[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/08/18/unpredictable-work-hoursand-volatile-incomes-are-long-term-risks-for-american-workers/

[4] https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2014.922601