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Work/Life Balance 2.0 — It’s Not What You Think It Is

We’ve heard time and time again about how important it is that we allow people to have work/life balance. What if we took that same idea and we applied it to the training and equipping of our employees? What if we took time and resources to train people for life, not just for work?

I believe it starts by caring about your people on a holistic level. When an employee feels cared for, it’s often because they know they are valued beyond their role at work. For example, when I was at Chick-fil-A, we had an annual multi-day conference that was a time of celebration, inspiration, and education. We celebrated our wins and handed out awards and recognition, and heard from inspirational speakers to get us ready for another year. This sounds like a pretty standard corporate conference, right? But what made this conference different was the education part. During the educational portion, there were several breakout sessions on topics such as health, wellness, personal finance, marriage, and family. Not only did we learn how to be better professionally, we had the opportunity to learn how to be better personally.

Some companies may see that list and think it’s a waste of resources to pour money into something that doesn’t look like it’s directly impacting the bottom line. However, the issue with that line of thinking is that healthy employees absolutely do impact the bottom line. By showing your people that you care about them on a deeper level, you’re creating raving fans. When you care about your people holistically, they will care about the company holistically. Who wouldn’t want to work for a company that helps them become better from a wellness perspective, grow in areas such as personal finance and in their marriages and families, and excel as a community citizen?

While you may not be able to put on a huge conference every year for your people, there are smaller ways you can make sure you’re pouring into your employees in a meaningful way. Below are a couple of easy ways you can do this.

  1. Check in often and create a safe environment for honest conversation.
  2. Get to know who your people are and what matters most to them and then periodically budget time and money to act on those learnings.
  3. Create an environment where personal development is honored and valued; this could look like allocating a small budget for discretionary individual development or even simply giving the gift of time to participate in a book club.
  4. Provide opportunities to serve your community as a team.

In closing, by caring for your team on a holistic level, you’ll create a healthy, thriving culture in your organization. And it’s Remarkable cultures like this that create raving fans both inside and outside their walls. Stay tuned. Next month, we’re going to take this concept one step further!

Together, we can Spark a Revolution of brands more defined by meaning than money, brands that achieve success in a manner that redefines it.

I’d love to connect with you on social media, you can find me on these platforms:

Together, we can Spark a Revolution of brands more defined by meaning than money, brands that achieve success in a manner that redefines it.

David Salyers
Founder, Spark A Revolution

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