On the tenth week of Christmas, my recruiter gave to me – What you can do to improve your work life balance culture!

What does work life balance mean to you? Everyone has such a different opinion, and it can mean something completely different, from one person to the next, and even one generation to the next.

In essence – employees in the current workforce now value having a job that they can schedule around their family and other commitments – a job that allows them to enjoy hobbies, me time, and time spent in their communities and with loved ones.

Other industries have shifted to complete work-from-home or hybrid working arrangements, allowing for a far more flexible lifestyle and unfortunately there has been a huge shift in skilled workers migrating over to industries that can facilitate this type of work.

How can industries like ours compete with these types of working arrangements when our skills require us to work exclusively on-site? As hairdressing and beauty face an ongoing war to find and maintain talent, we have no choice but to explore making meaningful changes to compete with the shift happening in other industries.

Here is our take on what small (and big) changes you could make to improve your ‘work life balance’ offering.

Employers need to lead by example.

A shift toward a better culture around boundaries in a workplace requires those at leadership level to value their own work life balance as an example, so that others feel that they can too. Avoid powering through and showing up to the clinic or salon sick, don’t book in clients outside of your opening hours, and try to avoid formal correspondence with your team out of working hours if you can.

Set clear KPI’s and evaluate performance

Setting clear goals and objectives and assessing individual performance will allow you to understand and measure team members individual success. Could it be possible that they may be able to meet the required goals and objectives on reduced working hours, or outside of evenings and weekends, allowing for a better work life balance?

Consider changing your salon hours

With so much of the corporate workforce moving to flexible working hours, appointments within business hours are now an option, with fewer people requiring strictly evening or weekend appointments.

Employees are looking to have set days off with limited evenings or weekends and job advertisements that outline this as an option are undoubtedly performing better with applicants. Understanding your teams individual requirements and balancing them with your realistic client requirements is key to finding a quality balance.

Have you implemented a structure that facilitates a quality work life balance for your team? We would love to hear about it! Share what has worked and what hasn’t worked in your own business so others in our community can consider what could be a great option.

Listen to our Keira from Headhunter talk about work life balance on the AHC Podcast!

Listen on Spotify here: 
https://spoti.fi/3UiV0aa
Listen on Apple Podcasts here: 
https://apple.co/3xyGL7k
Listen on Amazon Music here: 
https://amzn.to/3DqkJqJ