ForumsManaging Employees and HR

We are pretty liberal when it comes to work/life balance (especially because in a company of seven people, five of us have newborns!) We're a virtual company, which in some ways makes it easier to balance, some ways harder. Working from home, you often feel like you never "unplug" - our designer says you are basically working 24 hours a day with extended breaks for eating and sleeping! To combat this, our employees have a certain number of days they are required to take off each quarter to prevent burn-out. Whether employees are in the office or not, they need to feel excited about their work and energized or they simply are not as productive.

Also, as a company we are big fans of letting people work when they work best and not worrying about when that is. As long as the work gets done, our employees are free to schedule their work around childcare or eldercare needs, classes, hobbies and the like. We give daily status reports via email so that everyone knows what each other is working on, and we have an in-person staff meeting once a week to make sure we are all on track with the goals that need to be accomplished. Obviously, during crunch times when we need all hands on deck, everyone does tend to work at the same time but usually work schedules are set by employees and communicated to the team via a staff calendar.

With today's available technology, there is really not a need for most business to strictly adhere to a 9-5 schedule (although I realize it's not possible for everyone.) A one-size-fits-all schedule does not work anymore and the younger workforce especially expects more flexiblity when it comes to balancing work and life.

Hope this helps and thanks for asking the question!

~BatchBlue