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How to Achieve Work-Life Integration and Boost Employee Satisfaction

"What does the phrase "work-life balance" evoke for you? Is it a day meticulously divided between hours for self, work, and family? Or perhaps it is a flexible routine that adjusts to the demands of your personal and professional lives? In our evolving world, especially after a global pandemic, the meaning of "work-life balance" has significantly transformed. It may now encompass virtual commuting, periodic breaks for personal chores or child care, and a dispersed work schedule.

Despite the varied interpretations, one thing is clear: "work-life balance" is a pivotal aspect of the future of work and crucial for employee satisfaction. However, is this balance always achievable? We would argue not, and in this blog, we are going to discuss why we believe we should shift our focus from the elusive work-life balance towards a more attainable goal - work-life integration. We'll delve into how Workplace from Meta, previously known as 'Workplace from Facebook', can serve as a key enabler for this integration, which we deem as the new peak of employee satisfaction.

In this blog, you will find: 

 😕 Why work Life Balance Isn't Feasible For Employee Satisfaction

🔄 The Changing Boundaries of Work-Life Balance

🤝 Striving for Work-Life Integration

🚀 3 Ways that Workplace from Meta Helps Improve Employee Satisfaction through Work-Life Integration

🏁 Conclusion

Why Work-Life Balance Isn’t Feasible for Employee Satisfaction

As we’ve mentioned, there are lots of ideas around the concept of work-life balance. But that concept puts a lot of emphasis on your work life and your personal life being perfectly in tune, all the time, every day. Having just lived through a global pandemic that affected every aspect of our lives – and while continuing to navigate the new normal that the last year and a half have yielded, we know this isn’t the case.

work-life-balance-for-employee-satisfaction

When Work Takes Precedence

There will be days where work must take priority over everything else you do. Whether working from home or working in the office, that multimillion-dollar account will need some extra TLC to close. Your client’s servers go down and you need to spend 24x7 to fix their environment and recover their data. Your organization’s holding a big gala event and it’s “all-hands-on-deck” to pull it off. Business trip – enough said. Whatever the reason, there are always going to be times when you need to put the rest of your life on hold and focus on work.

The Times When Personal Life Needs Attention

Similarly, there’ll also be times when work can, or needs to take a backseat. A sick family member requires your care and support. Kids need help navigating virtual classroom learning. You take a vacation and your spouse says no phones allowed. Your clients aren’t as active during certain parts of the year, so you have more flexibility. These are the days when you can place more emphasis on your personal life – indulge in those hobbies of yours, spend more time with loved ones, or just veg out on the couch with a good show or book.

The Changing Boundaries of Work-Life Balance

When you look at these kinds of scenarios, it’s clear that work-life balance is a concept that just isn’t feasible. And, according to a New Yorker article on The Cult of Overwork, the global co-head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, points out that with the surge in technology in the workforce, there are no boundaries or breaks anymore. That cell phone in your pocket gives you 24x7x365 accessibility, and because of that, everyone is demanding instant gratification and instant connectivity. There is no such thing as ‘being offline’ anymore, and so, it’s unreasonable to believe that you could achieve any work-life balance. It’s argued that, throughout the pandemic, we’ve become even more reliant on our technology, our smartphones, and our laptops to keep us connected – not just in our professional lives, but in our personal lives, too.

So, rather than strive for something that isn’t feasible, why don’t we just turn our attention to something that’s a little easier to achieve? As a society, we should consider achieving work-life integration.

boundaries of work life balance

Striving for Work-Life Integration

Work-life integration is an approach that takes all areas of life – work, home or family, community, personal, and health – into consideration. It’s about finding the harmonious synergy between all the things you find most important. How? By leveraging technology to intertwine around your work and your personal life.

What do we mean by this?

Technology has opened many new ways for us to collaborate and work virtually, especially in the last few years and even more, especially during the pandemic we’re living through. This advancement provides vast new ways of taking advantage of work schedule flexibility. Consider the following:

  • Video conference calling capabilities have progressed to the point where you can stay in touch with your clients and colleagues from everywhere, from any device. As demonstrated throughout the pandemic, we’ve come a long way from physical, on-site meetings, and video technology has facilitated this advancement.

remote work good listener

  • Every phone has data capabilities, giving instant connectivity to the Internet at your fingertips – a far cry from when Internet was only through landline cables, and you needed to be physically plugged in to it to check your emails!

  • Wi-Fi connections allow for the opportunity to turn any place with it into your office – any documents or files that are stored on a Cloud-based server can be accessed via an Internet or data connection from any device, at any time. This opens the possibility of working while waiting for your daughter to finish swimming practice, or taking a parent to the doctor, or waiting for your spouse at the airport.

3 Ways that Workplace from MEta Helps Improve Employee Satisfaction through Work-Life Integration

In the section above, we talked about some scenarios that show how technology has provided new ways of working, and, with the global pandemic still very much fresh in folks’ minds, we’re seeing evidence of why these technology. Workplace from Meta fits neatly into this technology-enabling work-life integration concept, because it allows you to communicate with people at any time, from any device and all you need is an Internet connection to do so.

Given this, let’s look at 3 scenarios where Workplace from Meta has helped with work-life integration, and, by extension, employee satisfaction.

Scenario 1: Workplace from MEta Lets You Broadcast Live from Anywhere

microsoft teams meeting

You’re the busy CEO of a small to medium-sized business. You’re also a parent. While at one of your son’s weekend soccer tournaments out-of-town, you receive word that a huge account has just signed a sales deal. You are ecstatic – your team’s worked so hard to land this new client and now that the deal is won, it’s time to celebrate! Since you know that they’ve all been anxious about this deal, you decide not to wait for the Monday morning meeting to let them know. Nor does an email seem appropriate – for one, it’s Saturday, so they’re not checking it. For another, it won’t convey the proper emotions you wish to capture.

Enter Workplace from Meta, which gives you the ability to broadcast live video from anywhere.

Opening your Workplace app on your mobile phone, you navigate to your CEO group – it’s an open group you created for everyone in your organization to keep them informed of important things that they need to know. You navigate to the “write something” section, then click the “Go Live” button and record your exuberant praise of the team. At the same time, your team will get a notification on each of their devices saying that you’ve gone live, and they can either click that notification and watch you, or, because Workplace clearly helps with work-life integration, they can watch it at a time that’s more convenient to them!

Scenario 2: Workplace from Meta Lets You Share and Work on Documents When You Need To

share documents on Workplace from Facebook

You are the marketing coordinator for your company, and you’ve just finished a gruelling season of trade shows. You’re finally heading out on a much-needed vacation. You’re at the airport, waiting to fly out. Then, you get a notification on your phone. Your manager’s tagged you in a post. Opening up your Workplace app, you navigate to the notifications and see that your manager’s posted something in your “Marketing” group. She’s left a post saying that she knows you’re leaving, but she’d like to know if you could check out a one-pager that she’s going to be sending to the printers that afternoon. Not terribly urgent, but if you have some free time at the airport, she’d like your input. The document’s attached to the post.

You’ve got an hour before your flight boards, and you want to save your books for when you’re on the beach, so, you decide you may as well help her out. Because of Workplace’s integration with Microsoft SharePoint, you're able to open the document and work on it from your phone. You take twenty minutes and give the document a thorough once-over. Good thing you did, because you found three minor typos. Saving the document to your phone, you upload it in your reply and let her know that you’ve taken a look.

This is work-life integration – being able to share and work on documents when it suits you.

Scenario 3: Workplace Lets You Stay Connected to Your Team at a Time That Works for Everyone

Workplace from Facebook profile

As the Vice President of Channel Sales of your organization, you believe in getting all your sales team on the same page. But, some of your team is based in other areas of the globe, so having meetings where everyone is in the same room doesn’t exactly work, especially when some of them can’t travel due to current pandemic-related restrictions. And, given that everyone’s in different time zones, you can’t always expect that they’ll be able to get back to you during your workday. Your Europe team is 6 hours ahead, your Vietnam team is 12 hours ahead, and your California team is 3 hours behind. How do you make sure that you can communicate with everyone, or answer their questions, or help them with whatever they need?

With Workplace from Meta being available on whatever device you need, when you need it, you can monitor communication whenever you have a free moment. And so can they! Your Vietnam team gets a call from a prospect at the start of their workday – 9am local time – and they need to clarify that your company can do what the prospect is asking. Using Workplace by Meta's chat capabilities, they send you a quick message. You’ve just tucked your daughter in for the night when you get their SOS on your cell phone. Knowing that they’re looking for an answer, you’re able to quickly send back reassurance before sitting down with your spouse to watch the latest episode of your favourite show.

Work-life integration is especially important when you have different employees in different time zones, and with Workplace from Meta, you can stay connected at a time that’s convenient for everyone.

Conclusion

The examination of work-life dynamics suggests that striving for a perfect balance may be less realistic and more strenuous in our fast-paced, technology-driven world. Instead, we propose a shift towards work-life integration, a concept that acknowledges the intertwined and overlapping nature of our professional and personal lives. This approach recognizes the varying demands of different life facets and accepts occasional imbalance as part of the process.

In conclusion, the journey towards work-life integration offers a more feasible and less stressful alternative to the elusive quest for work-life balance. By embracing this concept, we foster a more sustainable lifestyle, effectively navigating the overlapping realms of our personal and professional lives, leading to a more holistic and rewarding life experience.

So What’s Next?
Overwhelmed by ineffective communication within your organization?
 
At LineZero, we're proud partners with Workplace from Meta, dedicated to implementing solutions that enhance two-way communication.
 
 
Take the first step towards transformation. Reach out to us at LineZero, and let's build your dream corporate culture with Workplace from Meta today!
 
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