A lot of hours are spent between leaving home for work and returning. For me, this is usually around 13 hours a day. The best employers realize the personal cost of long days, and seek to help staff increase their ‘free time’ at home.
Common ways bosses can save staff time at home include:
The location of the work place impacts employee time in many ways. For example - commute time to work; time required to access to amenities (e.g – shops, food, library, gym etc) during the day.
It is important that the work place is easily assessable for those using public transport. Sometimes, employers choose a location to save on rental costs, but the personal cost on employee commute time can be severe. Employee commute time is their own time.
For those driving, they need easy access parking close to work.
Many people simply are not good at managing their time. Employers can help by supporting courses on say time management, project management and work-life balance.
Fortune magazine recently ran an article on the best employers. Some of the on-site services provided by leading organizations include -
Clearly only larger organizations can provide many of these services. However, being well-located (as per point 1) can be almost as effective. The advantage of providing these services is that staff can get things done during the day while at work. Providing these services is not meant to reduce work time, but rather save personal staff time, and help them better manage their work-life balance.
It is in the employer’s interest to encourage healthy staff. Regular exercise and a healthy lifestyle can lead to better use of time both at work and at home. Companies can promote health through providing gym membership, health assessments and a fruit bowl.
For more details refer to Why busy people need exercise time.
Allowing staff to work from home saves commute time. For some this is a substantial time saving over a week.
Flexible work hours enables staff to organise their days so as to get more done in both life and work. For example, staff member could work back one night, and then on another day leave work for a couple of hours to watch their kids play sport.
Shopping on-line saves time, and accepting deliveries of goods at work (instead of home) can save even more time. For example, staff members can buy their groceries on-line and have them delivered to work. This avoids the need for staff having to be home at set times to accept goods.
Staff can use virtual assistants to save both time at work and home. Some companies now include provision of a virtual assistant in salary packages. For more information refer to our article Save Time with a virtual assistant
Employees have numerous households duties they need to perform each week. Employers can ‘buy time’ for staff by paying for (say) their housekeeping or gardening.
Some staff need to be encouraged to work, while others need to be encouraged to have a life. Having a boss who encourages a healthy work-life balance is a good thing.
No doubt there are many other ways your boss could save you time (or if you are the boss, how you could save your staff time). Any thoughts or ideas?
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