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Achieving Work/Life Balance - A Dream or a Possibility?
Is having a balance between "work" and "life" a fantasy? At a time when many people feel fortunate to still have a job, are we asking for too much when we want a balanced life?
Is having a balance between "work" and "life" a fantasy? At a time when many people feel fortunate to still have a job, are we asking for too much when we want a balanced life?
When was the last time you:
- took a vacation?
- went away for a weekend?
- got away from work early to do something fun?
- worked out?
- spent some time on a favorite
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hobby or In the Middle Ages, falconry was a very popular pastime (what today might be called a hobby), and of all the different birds used for it, the Eurasian Hobby was perhaps the most popular. It is said that the modern use of hobby to indicate a pastime followed from this.
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sport?
Achieving balance in your life when your work or
A sport consists of a physical and mentally competitive activity carried out with a recreational purpose for competition, for self-enjoyment, to attain excellence, for the development of a skill, or some combination of these. A sport has physical activity, side by side competition, self-motivation and a scoring system. The difference of purpose is what characterises sport, combined with the notion of individual (or team) skill or prowess.
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business is exhilarating, enjoyable, or demanding can be a challenge. When you have a family, they can be your reminders. When you don't, then you need other factors to remind you to re-align your life.Sarah had been working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for many years at her employer. After getting married and having children, various relatives helped with childcare when she returned to work. When their two kids started school, however, both sets of grandparents moved away to other states. Her husband started work at 6:30 a.m., so he left the house by 5:45. Sarah had to leave by 7:30 to get to work by 8:00, leaving the kids alone for an hour. Since the children were still so young, being home alone didn't work, and going to a neighbor's house wasn't an option.
Even though all of Sarah's co-workers worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sarah decided to ask if she could start at 9 a.m., take a half hour for lunch, and leave at 5:30. Her employer agreed to accommodate her request. That way, she could leave the house when the kids left to catch the school bus, and her husband got home in the afternoon just before the kids arrived. This worked out very well for their family, and soon her employer began to pursue other avenues to help make employees' lives easier.
Achieving a work/life balance is a possibility, and I think it's reasonable to request it.
Having a work/life balance is often about adjusting your work patterns.
If your place of employment has not yet adopted changes to their policies to help employees achieve a balanced life (and you notice that co-workers seem to be stressed out), it may be time to start discussions with human resources and other
In economics, business is the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals, usually to generate revenue.
The etymology of "business" refers to the state of being busy, in the context of the individual as well as the community or society. In other words, to be busy is to be doing commercially viable and profitable work.
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management about which types of changes would be do-able.Why Help People Achieve Work/Life Balance?
More and more companies are realizing that by making it easier for employees to live a balanced life, the employees:
- have less stress (they stay focused on work when they're at work)
- stay
"Management" (from Old French ménagement "the art of conducting, directing", from Latin manu agere "to lead by the hand") characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organisation, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). Early twentieth-century management writer Mary Parker Follett defined management as "the art of getting things done through people."
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healthy (they get sick less often, and call in sick less often) - stay with the company (there is a higher retention rate)
All of these things are great for employers. I know it's a cliché, but it's true: it's win-win.
What Types of Practices Do Employers Put in Place?
There are a variety of things that companies do to help their employees balance their work/life. Some of these include:
Flex time: Employees choose their start times, lunch hour, and finish times, and can vary this from day to day. Typically, the times are within certain parameters (i.e. 6 a.m. = the earliest start time; 7 p.m. = latest finish of an 8-hour slot).Comp time: When employees work overtime, they can take an equal amount of time off on another day, or spread the time to more than one day.
Job Sharing: Instead of one full time employee, a particular job is shared by two part time employees.
Telecommuting: The employee works at home, using a
Health is a term that refers to a combination of the absence of illness, the ability to cope with everyday activities, physical fitness, and high quality of life. In any organism, health can be said to be a "state of balance," or analogous to homeostasis, and it also implies good prospects for continued survival. Wellness is a term sometimes used to describe the psychological state of being healthy, but is most often used in the field of alternative medicine to describe one's state of being.
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computer and phone to stay connected. Technology has enabled telecommuting to be easily accomplished for many jobs.Compressed Working Hours: This concept allows employees to work their total number of weekly hours over fewer days. For example, one person may work a 4-day week, while another may work 9 days over a 2-week period.
Annualized Hours: An employee's total working hours are calculated over a year instead of a week. They work according to the peaks and valleys of activity over a year's time.
What Else Have Some Employers Done?
Some large employers have conveniences available for employees right in the building. Many have workout facilities. I've heard that SBC in Chicago has a hair salon/barber shop. Some have a dry cleaning pick up & delivery service. Others have a concierge service that helps with
A computer is a machine for manipulating data according to a list of instructions known as a program.
Computers are extremely versatile. In fact, they are universal information-processing machines. According to the Church–Turing thesis, a computer with a certain minimum threshold capability is in principle capable of performing the tasks of any other computer, from those of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer, as long as time and memory capacity are not considerations. Therefore, the same computer designs may be adapted for tasks ranging from processing company payrolls...
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running errands, making doctor's appointments, or finding an electrician or plumber. I've also seen (and used!) a chair massage service that was brought into a company weekly.How Do I Know if I Need More Balance in My Life?
Rob Parsons, author of "The Heart of Success", says that if any of the following "danger signs" appear in your life, then it's time to readjust your work/life balance:
- You work longer hours than anyone else
- You resent colleagues who work fewer hours than you do
- You are often irritable, exhausted, and/or have a headache
- You feel ill when you're on vacation
- You go out for dinner wearing business clothes
- You feel tense when the car in front of you doesn't move immediately when the light turns green
Have you recognized yourself or your business anywhere in this article? What are you going to do to make a change?
© 2006 Borgeson Consulting, Inc.
Glory Borgeson is a business coach and consultant, and the president of Borgeson Consulting, Inc. She works with two groups of people: small business owners (with 500 employees or less) to help them increase their Entrepreneurial IQ, which leads to increased profit and decreased stress; and with executives in the "honeymoon phase" of a new position (typically the first two years) to coach them to success. Top athletes have a coach; why not you? Click here for Borgeson Consulting, Inc. This article was originally published in The Business Express, Borgeson's free monthly ezine. You may subscribe by clicking here: Running is by definition the fastest means for an animal to move on foot. It is defined in sporting terms as a gait in which at some point all feet are off the ground at the same time. It is a form of both anaerobic exercise and aerobic exercise.
...click on link for more information and related articles. Ezine An ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. CULT OF THE DEAD COW claims to have published the first ezine, starting in 1984, with its ezine still in production more than 20 years later. While this claim is hotly debated, the ezine craze certainly began in the BBS days of the 1980s. Phrack, which opened its doors in 1985, is another surviving ezine of unparalelled technical quality. Unlike CULT OF THE DEAD COW, which publishes articles individually, Phrack published collections of articles in a manner that was more similar to a print magazine.
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