If it’s a constant stress trying to make time for cocktails with the girls, or spending quality time with the family whilst ensuring that you are working to the best of your ability and performance at work? Ann Pickering, 02’S HR Director offers her advice on the perfect work/life balance that will even leave you with a little ‘me-time’.
For working women, phrases like ‘work/life balance’ and ‘having it all’ seem to be bandied about as often as ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘pass the milk’. Juggling a successful career with home responsibilities isn’t easy, and it’s a struggle both men and women can relate to.
I’ve worked at O2 for ten years, during which time I’ve had the wonderful challenge of coordinating my full time job with raising my two boys. There’s no tried and tested formula to make it work, but from my experience, the key is to think about how to make every minute of your work day count. Only by doing this will you be able to have that all-important down time, whether that’s meeting friends after work or getting home to spend time with family.
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to work patterns, which is why flexible working can be so beneficial. At O2, it’s a central part of our culture, with some employees telling us flexible working is worth more to them than a pay-rise. All too often, people assume that a working day involves sitting down at your desk at 9am and not moving from your computer until at least 8 hours later. Not only is this an unrealistic expectation with our constantly-changing daily routines and responsibilities, but our recent research showed that being chained to your desk is actually bad for productivity. We need to stop accepting old-fashioned working routines, and understand what working environments really get the best out of us – whether we’re a working mother or father, or a graduate new to the world of work.
So how do you give your work pattern a shake-up to make sure you’re getting the most out of the hours you put in? Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your time and take you one step further towards that all-too-elusive ‘work-life balance’:
1. Your time is precious, use it wisely
While obviously not every job can be done from home, I often challenge my team to think about whether they really need to be in the office. Why get up at 6am and sit on a packed train for an hour for a meeting you could easily attend virtually? I recently spoke to a colleague who finds video conference calls more useful than face-to-face meetings because they offer the social element of work while being much more time effective. So many companies now offer the digital tools to make working remotely simple, so make the most of them.
2. But so is everyone else’s!
While drafting and sending agendas can seem like time wasted on admin, it’s actually incredibly useful. Sharing reading materials 24 hours in advance of meetings and encouraging others to do the same helps to make sure that everyone is up to speed and ready to start as soon as they sit down. If someone is consistently late, call them out on it – no matter how senior. There’s nothing more frustrating than sitting in a room waiting for stragglers to arrive, and your colleagues will thank you for being brave enough to say what they were all thinking!
By taking the time to prepare, you’ll often find that hour-long meetings can be slimmed down to 45 minutes, giving you extra time to catch up on other tasks, or indeed enabling you to get home that bit earlier.
3. Break your own rules...
Some tasks are best done in the office and often there’s no substitute for face-to-face time with colleagues. But, there are undoubtedly many jobs that are much easier to complete at home. When this is the case, carve out time for yourself to complete them, even if it goes against your usual policy of working from the office to be on hand if needed. Turn your emails off to concentrate on the task in hand. I often do this and the old adage really is true - the business won’t fall apart if you don’t respond to people for a couple of hours!
If I’ve got a document that needs writing or a presentation to prepare, I always set aside time to crack it away from the office. Home for me is the Peak District, so I sit at my desk with my dog at my feet and look out on to the moors – it provides the perfect backdrop for most of my thinking and helps me to get things done much more quickly than I ever would in the office.
4. ...and everyone else’s
Working smartly in isolation is not enough. Challenge your team mates to shake up their own routines by sharing knowledge of new ways of working flexibly with them - whether that’s a new app which enables easy video calls on the go or something like Smartsheet to help you manage complex projects. Even if only one team member finds it useful, it’s been well worth the effort.
We’re lucky that we live in a digital society with the tools and technologies at our disposal to allow us to truly be in two places at once. With most businesses realising the value of flexible working, my final piece of advice would be to make the most of the opportunities that this brings, to truly make every minute count.
If you have found the perfect balance of work and home life, let us know what tips and tricks you used to allow more time for yourself.
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