There is no general technique for finding equilibrium between professional responsibilities and personal activities. It is entirely different for each individual. For some, it means spending time with the family every weekend, for others, it may be time spent doing hobbies or socializing.
Before the pandemic, professionals strive to integrate work-life balance into their careers. Most employees ensure that work is over every time they leave the office after an 8-hour shift. With the remote working setup because of the pandemic, it’s harder to separate work from your personal lives.
Now, companies understand what it means to balance a professional career and personal life as we slowly recover from this health crisis. Instead of looking out how employees spend their time at work, companies are now focusing on the results giving more importance to human capital management. They are now encouraging employees that work-life balance may not work in this new normal, and they should start pushing for work-life integration. Now, let’s look at the difference between the two and understand that these terms cannot be used interchangeably.
How Work-Life Integration differs from Work-Life Balance
Work-life integration and work-life balance both strive to achieve balance between work and personal life. However, work-life balance aims to reach an optimal state where work and personal life prosper individually, while work-life integration aims to coexist in both professional and personal careers.
As opposed to work-life balance, work integration does not concern an employee’s work time or personal time as it focuses more on productivity and efficiency. It is more about managing your timetables following your organization’s schedule without the need to sacrifice important aspects of your life.
Work-life integration is a strategy that allows employees to be flexible, see the big picture, and learn the art of synergy across life – may it be work, health, family, or personal well-being. And here are three essential tips to start the process of integrating a professional career and personal life.
Achieving Work-Life Integration
Define Your Version of Work-Life Integration that Works for You
There is no overall approach to the integration of work and personal life. Make sure you clearly define your vision, personality, productivity, and needs. Determine your goals and objectives. If you wish to have a flexible working arrangement and a schedule that works for you, make sure you know your approach to productive work.
Make Better Use of Advanced Technology
Utilize advanced technologies in working efficiently and foster easier communication with everyone. Learn through various applications and websites to help get things done during the day, such as Notion, that’s like your time attendance management system. You can also try to look for hcm softwares to help you with evaluating your performance and experiment with the employee self service portal for more productivity and efficiency.
Change Your State Of Mind and Be Open To Change
Don’t expect that work-life integration will work for you overnight. It takes considerable adjustment, trial and error, and a lot of learning. Don’t take it on yourself if things do not go the way you want. Practice reminding yourself to embrace change, make some changes if necessary, and improve your ways once you’re done evaluating the results.
After understanding work-life integration, you can start leveraging the above tips by partnering with the right organization. If you wish to know more about state-of-the-art solutions for employee relations and human capital management within UAE, check us out here in Business Systems House.
