Episode 33: Work-Life Balance

Welcome to another edition of “Around with Randall”. Your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. 

I welcome you again, hopefully again, to this edition of “Around with Randall” today, we're going to step away a little bit from the neo-tactical of fundraising and gift officers and jump maybe up 10,000 or 15,000 feet, but a really important subject that I have seen come up a couple of times here recently. It's somewhat attached to an earlier podcast where I talked about remote working situations and that's the idea of work-life balance. I've had a couple of clients, gift officers, CDOs, and others who are trying to figure out as we move back into, I'm not quite sure anywhere near normal, but towards a regular that this idea of work-life balance is becoming more a part of a conversation and what are we going to look like as an office? And then on top of that, I've got some Chief Development Officers who I work with who are employing younger people, millennials, and Generation Z’s. They're realizing their perspective is different. We've kind of ventured into several conversations recently that all related to this, and I thought this would be an interesting topic.

So, let's start from the very top work-life balance is really as the kind of the slogan indicates the ability for people to balance what's a priority to them. We have to realize, to begin with, that not everybody has the same exact criteria when it comes to balancing their life. People are at different stages of their life. They are at different places with family, age of children. They're at different places with their health. There are different places with the relationships, all of those on the home front and then if you tack on where they are professionally in their development, where they view themselves in the professional growth, where they'd like to go in terms of next steps in their career. On the professional side, when you put the two together, it creates a mix that's different for every individual person, but some of the statistics around what we're learning more and more about work-life balance are really interesting. Frankly, how poorly we do both as an employee and as a leader in establishing those boundaries, establishing those criteria that individuals want to achieve that balance.

Nearly half of the country believes they're workaholics. 66% so two-thirds, believe they have no work-life balance. 77% of employees believe that, or I've experienced that, they've burned out in their current job. Current job, not the next job where they're at now. 26% of Americans take work home. I find that number staggeringly low, to be candid, so, I'm not quite sure. I'd like to see a little bit of the background on the data on that one. That when we talk about younger employees, that 40% of millennials identify themselves as work martyrs. There was a great article, not great in result, but great reporting that on Wall Street, newly hired individuals in large investment firms are working a hundred hours a week minimum. This has led to an entire conversation in the last several weeks about this idea of work-life balance. Is that appropriate? To the point where these employees didn't even really realize the depth of the issue that they just kept working. I have to get this done. I didn't even think about taking time off.

We are 29th in the world out of 40 when it comes to taking time off. That's really judged by the fact that we have more people in the scale, working 50 hours or more a week. The average vacation days taken by an employee in the United States is 10.9. The average granted is closer to 21, which means just by averages people aren't taking 10 days that they were granted or they're carrying them over. If maybe that's something your employer does. 

The positive sides of a work-life balance are just as powerful as maybe some of the negatives. We just talked about that remote work and the ability to balance that actually encourages exercise and increases productivity. In a previous podcast, I talked about this idea of remote working much in much greater detail in the idea of productivity, but it's coming up now, as it relates to health and balance. Less work-life balance also increases the chance of a stroke and you lose sleep more often if you don't have that balance. So, I can share with you these statistics, but I wouldn't be fair if I didn't say that I'm on the furthest end of having an appropriate work-life balance. I fall into the category of being a workaholic that I sometimes lack work-life balance. I haven't been burned out because we'll talk about some of the things you can do here in a moment, kind of the mid tactical. Then we'll get down to the individual tactical, but I fall into the category of a workaholic and I'll talk about here in a second, why it works for me, but the key in all of this is number one for you as an individual to have a conversation with yourself, an honest one. 

So, your first mid-level tactical opportunity -- have a robust conversation with yourself about what work-life balance means to you. Be willing to embrace yourself in having this conversation, your professional life, your personal life deserve that kind of attention. So, what are some things we can do along that line to have that conversation? What are some things we should realize? The first is an acceptance that there is no such thing as a perfect work-life balance and that everybody as mentioned at the top is different. We all look at this in a different way. The key is what's best for you. What is it you value based on where you are in the stage of your professional life, your personal life, your relationships, financial status, current needs, kids? There's all kinds of factors. 

The second thing is that, and I think the work we do in non-profit benefits, the second one greatly. Find a job you love. The reason me being a workaholic and embracing that is I love what I do. I genuinely love it. It's not even in a comparison to the way I love my wife and children and love being a son and a brother. But in the times that I'm away from the family and my personal life, I love doing this.

I think of myself as an educator. That's why I do this podcast, this vlog. That's why I write the blogs. That's why I consult. I think of myself as a teacher and I love doing it. I just happen to have had a few experiences that might be helpful. Find something you love. Also, you need to prioritize health and I'm terrible at this. I need to spend, and I'm going to start putting it on my to-do list and blocking my calendar. And we've talked about calendar control in earlier podcasts, for me to go take a walk twice a day, I can do it. I just get bogged down in all the other things. By the way, all those other things weren't going to be any more immediate in terms of a priority if they waited 15 minutes while I went and took a walk twice a day -- so 30 minutes. Prioritize, whatever it is you do to mentally and physically walk away a little bit is a positive in terms of productivity for the rest of your day. 

You should also try to figure a way to unplug. I'm lousy at this as well. A lot of people lead us to our fifth is take vacation and there's nobody worse than it than I am. I have made a promise to my wife that we're going on vacation so much is that promise we've already paid for what we're doing this summer with the family to get away. It's not big. It's not crazy. It's just the four of us. Prepaid and if I'm anything more than a workaholic, I'm cheap. So, I'm not wasting that money. I'm going to go on vacation for the first time in three years. That's not healthy. It's not wise. So, you should go on vacation. You should take some breaks. You need to unplug, pull yourself away, put your phone away at night. Don't answer that email at 9:00 PM or 10:00 PM, if you don't have to. 

The other thing is that you need to realize priorities -- no one at your office -- where you work if you're a gift officer -- the donors you work with care for or loves you as much as the people in your house do. This is probably where I am the most blessed. I like to say I outkicked my coverage with my wife 20 some years ago, and I have two amazing children. Nothing I do today, even on this podcast, is going to be as important as the time I sit around the dinner table, say a blessing, holding my kids’ and my wife's hands, and have a meal. We just talk about what everybody did that day or when I put my children to bed at night, or my wife and I watch The Big Bang Theory. Nothing's more important than that. I don't get it right all the time, but I work at it. No one's going to love you more than the people in your house. 

You should also really attempt to set some boundaries. What's appropriate? I have had experiences where I have worked with people who, because it fits their time and schedule that they send emails and text messages late at night, or 4:00 AM in the morning or on the weekend and expect people to respond. Okay. I'm not saying that's innately wrong, but what I am saying is if you haven't clarified the boundary for, and we'll talk about management and leadership versus employee here in a few minutes, that if you haven’t established those boundaries, then people might assume it’s okay. It's all right. To say, you know, when I'm doing this, I'm separated from work.

The last thing is, is to set goals both personally and professionally. When you do that, you're more likely to balance your life. Particularly if you have personal goals, personal things you want to accomplish, and they don't have to be degrees or this or that. Maybe it's just time. I just want to coach my son's team. I want to make sure I make all the recitals for my daughter. 

So, the mid-level tactical is number one is this idea of accept it's not perfect. Number two is find something you love to do. Number three is prioritize your health. Number four is unplug. Number five is use that vacation to do so. Number six is realizing priorities that the people who care and love you most are going to be at your house. It's your home, your family, that setting boundaries is important, both as a leader and as an employee. Lastly, setting goals is going to help. 

Let's go into the nuances of tactics for the manager, leader, supervisor, whatever versus employee. Number one, we'll start with the manager. As we've talked about before, COVID is changing all of this. If you're not adjusting, you're going to lose good people. It's going to be contrary to maybe what your organization's trying to accomplish. You're going to have to adjust. Know, your employees individually, you have a responsibility as a leader to figure out what is important to them. When you do so that's going to help set boundaries – simple, easy. If you have someone who's religious Saturday and Sunday mornings or whatever they do for their church services, maybe a time that is a huge boundary or the idea of religious holidays, whether it's Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Hanukkah, Ash Wednesday, Easter Monday. Respecting people's boundaries and what's important to them will give you a great deal of credibility as a leader that you recognize what their priorities are personally. That's an example. There are a lot of them, kid’s sports, travel, going to football games, whatever it is, figure that out. 

Be a good example. Try and I fail miserably. Try to do what you actually say is important. I like to work and get things done at odd times because I'm up early and up late and my family's asleep, but I'm very careful. I always was with employees to say, look, if I send you an email at 11, I am not expecting you to return it. It's just convenient for me. So, even if you're not working alongside of the timeframe, explain why and what you expect the response to be. I never expected anybody to respond. It was just my way of getting something done. And when I explained that they went, oh, so it can wait till in the morning. Absolutely. I don't need you to respond to me. It was just my time. 

Discuss the options with your employees. What can they do? What can't they do? How do you work together to build a plan and set a proper expectation? Most importantly, stay up with the trends. COVID has forced us into these idea of Zoom meetings and a work-life balance may be a little bit different from home. Zoom was present before COVID we just didn't use it. COVID forced us. That's an example of where trend might've been better sought before COVID, than after, in terms of your ability to do as a leader, what's best for your employees. 

As an employee, you have some opportunities too. Number one, be open to what's important. Tell your supervisor, your boss, your manager this is really a priority to me. Be respectful, but also be reasonable. Number two, you can't have everything. The organization still has to function. So, the organization may make some decisions. Is that a priority to you? Number three, realize like it or not, the more you make, the less work-life balance will be expected. I'm not saying I agree with it, but what I know is I've been very fortunate to grow in my career. There were more demands on my time. I think we just have to be aware of that. Lastly, prove yourself -- the most important. If you show, you can deliver with that work-life balance, your employer will give you an immense amount of latitude to find the level that meets with your expectations. Great employees are hard to find. People who model the mission and deliver the end result, they're hard to find. If you show that you're one of those people, you will put yourself in a position to have a lot more flexibility.

Work-life balance -- we're going to talk more about it as we come out of COVID because people are going to be forced back into old routines. We're going to find out where organizations are, where leaders are, and where employees are in a much heightened way than we did before COVID because we've had this experience that's changed the way we look at it. 

Just a couple of reminders, as I always do. If you have a comment or a recommendation, this show was recommended originally by one of my clients and a gift officer who said, hey, have you thought about this? I thought, well, gosh, I just was talking about this and it came together. You can talk to me about this. You can do so by emailing me at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com, that's two L's and two T's. Or if you disagree with something, I said, email me at reeks@hallettphilanthropy.com. My homage to Clark Howard -- Clark Stinks so if you disagree, let me know, I'd like to hear about it. 

Also, blogs are up 90-second reads. I saw some interesting things in the last couple of weeks that might be worthy of your attention. We'll get that on the website. Lastly, if you're listening, watching, subscribe, like, pass it on, forward it, leave a review -- all those things, if it helps somebody else.

 I'll conclude with this. I love what I do. I hope you do too, that was part of the work-life balance. I love this. I love teaching. I hope you find this valuable. I hope you find what we're talking about each podcast and blog as critical to something you might be able to use in your organization. You're doing great work. It is important. It is not missed in the large scheme. You are helping people whose lives are challenged. Remember what I always say. “Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened.” Nonprofit work is all about being people who make things happen and partnering with those in our community who want the same for people who are wondering what happened and that my friends-- there's nothing better. Just start your thought process on work-life balance. I hope you have a great week. Thank you for joining me here on “Around with Randall”. We'll see you next time. Don't forget. Make it a great day!