9 Steps You Can Take To Improve The Work-Life Balance Of Your Start-Up

Building a company from the ground up is a lot of work. If you aren’t careful, you and your employees can be overwhelmed. You can prevent that by taking these nine steps to improve the work-life balance of your start-up.

1. Make Your Expectations Clear

When your employees have to make guesses about what you want, they end up stressed, confused, and spending time on the wrong tasks. Eliminate confusion and make things easier for everyone by explaining exactly what you want.

2. Don’t Ask Your Employees To Compete 

It’s an incredibly bad idea to create a system where your employees feel the need to compete against each other. Here’s why.

• Employees who feel they’re competing against each other won’t collaborate. That can hurt the overall goals of your start-up.

• Competition can lead to dislike, which ruins the atmosphere of your company.

• Your customers may lose out on quality service.

Let your employees know the only person you’re comparing them to is who they were yesterday. It’s a much better recipe for work-life balance.

3. Get Organized – Physically

Disorganized office space can lead to stressed employees, longer wait times, and even accidents. Take some time to organize your space. Designate a place for everything so that the system can be easily maintained. 

4. Get Organized – Digitally

A disorganized digital space can create even more chaos than a disorganized physical space. Ensure your digital world is tidy by:

• Removing files that are no longer needed. For example old written drafts, emails you no longer need, and system files for programs you no longer use. 

• Combining your business systems. EnterpriseOne is an app that combines features like sales management and cloud storage so that everything can be in one place. You can even have JDE Consulting experts assist you in managing it.

• Developing a standard naming process for essential files. A marketing file might look something like this, for example, Marketing_NameOfAdCampaign_2021

Tidying up your digital space will increase the amount of time that can be spent productively, which cuts down on overtime at your start-up. 

5. Encourage Saying No

Let your employees know that you value honest communication. Encourage them to say no if you’re asking them to take on more than they can handle. This will allow them to feel more at ease and maintain a manageable workload. 

6. Buy Proper Equipment

Purchasing the right equipment is an excellent way to make life easier for employees. 

• Don’t skimp on quality to get a deal.
• Don’t ask employees to work with broken or malfunctioning equipment. 

• Do update necessary equipment regularly. 

Your employees can’t help but be stressed if they don’t have the equipment they need to make your start-up successful.

7. Limit Overtime

Overtime should be for those rare occasions when you have a project or deadline that absolutely can’t wait. Don’t make a habit of asking employees to stay over when it isn’t completely necessary. 

8. Let Employees Customize Their Space

An easy and fun way to make things more relaxed at the office is to let your employees customize their space. 

• Encourage employees to bring photos, plants, and other desk decors to the office.

• Hold desk decorating contests for the holidays.

• Provide proper power supplies for things like lamps, phone chargers, and maybe even a mini coffee maker.

Your employees spend a lot of time at work every week. Do your best to make it a comfortable experience.

9. Don’t Skip Vacations

Some employees don’t take all of their vacation days because they’re afraid of being seen as lazy. Assure your employees that isn’t the case by:

• Requiring them to use their vacation days.

• Setting an example by using your own time off.

• Holding an educational meeting on the benefits of vacations.

Constant work leads to burnout, depression, and decreased creativity. You can help prevent that by encouraging your employees to take time away from work.

Work-life balance is a crucial part of good business. Take these nine steps to show your employees that they’re working for the right start-up.