Avionics News July 2013 - 74

series

BUSINESS BASICS
B Y

G R E G

L A S L O

Working the Clock

How to Create Balance for Yourself – and Your Employees

f time is money, then a lot of people need investing help.
According to the Families and Work Institute, more
than half of all workers – and this could include you
– feel generally overwhelmed by the amount of work
they must do at home and the office. About four in 10
who have their lives out of whack report fatigue, illness
and resentment, resulting in diminished loyalty and lost
productivity at their jobs, according to managementconsulting firm Hay Group, and more than a quarter of those
are actively looking for a new job.
Even scarier, some workers can’t find time for sleep. The
Centers for Disease Control said one-third of employees are
chronically fatigued, and they spend more than eight minutes
of every hour “zoned out,” resulting in a loss of productivity
of more than $63 billion across the U.S. economy.
Any way you look at it, those human machines suffering
from work-life troubles risk breaking down, and this is
shaping up to be a business problem. Yet only 24 percent of
companies have formal worklife balance policies to
help their people,
according to

the Society for Human Resource Management.
If you wonder why this is your problem, look in the mirror.
If you’re stressed and overworked, then it’s possible your
people are only following your lead. This gives you even
more reasons to manage your own time-balancing act. While
you will probably never be able to fit everything into one
24-hour day, you can use some tricks to get the most out of
the 168 hours in a week or 720 hours in a month. When you
do, the research gives us good news for a change: Not only
will you improve workplace performance, you’ll also pave
the way for improved health.
FINDING A FIT
Work-life balance, if we’re looking for a working
definition, is the state where you have the energy, enthusiasm
and ability to meet the objectives of your personal and
professional lives. The specifics are different for everyone, yet
the goal is the same: to accomplish everything you consider
important without guilt, stress or painful sacrifice.
Because it is individual, there’s no secret formula; everyone
wants different things out of life. There are, however, some
big-picture ideas: priorities, boundaries and efficiency. Each
plays a role in how you manage your time and how you help
your employees manage theirs, too. Within them, you will
discover ways to edit your obligations, refocus your attention
and avoid distractions so you can accomplish more.
To those ends, here are five ways you can improve worklife fitness in your shop.
1. Lead. Begin by talking the talk. Communicate the need
for a good work-life fit, and make it part of your shop’s
values. In status meetings, allow employees to talk about their

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july

2013

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Avionics News July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News July 2013