“Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” – Robert Fulghum

This quote sums up beautifully what many of us aspire to but few achieve. It seems that whilst in the quote, work is mentioned last, it tends to find a way to sneak to the front of the queue and become all-consuming even at an unconscious level, writes Mark LeBusque.

So what can you do to change this?

It’s a unique time right now. One where the progressive thinkers in the small business community can create an environment based on a foundation of trust. An environment that lets them get creative about what it means to integrate all aspects of life design.

How life design works

With some small tweaks in mindset as a business owner, you can unlock the potential of your employees through changing forever the absurd notion of work-life balance to a concept I like to call, ‘life design’.

I experimented with the concept of ‘life design’ with a team by starting with a conversation about living a more enriched life. This conversation eventually saw the incorporation of non-work-related goals in employee performance plans. Employee engagement reached well into the 90 per cent range and business results were 200 per cent ahead of target for two consecutive years.

Today I encourage my clients to adopt a more progressive approach in allowing employees to design a life that is not based on this week’s fad but is sustainable and delivers real bottom-line results.

5 tips to create a new integrated approach to work:

Replace work-life balance with ‘life design’

Work is part of your life and for some reason, we continue to separate them with this outdated term ‘work-life balance’. Work is an important part of life and should be recognised as part of life. Ditch the term and reduce the employee ‘eye-rolling moments. We’re all sick of it.

Allow for a real-time assessment of current life design

We’re all caught in the hamster wheel of life and wonder at times where the 168 hours go. Undertaking a two-week life design audit is a great way to give permission for employees to get off the wheel and see what’s really going on. It’s like putting a line in the sand and using more than ‘I’m just busy’ as an excuse for poor life design.

See each employee as unique

The smart business owner will not get lazy and go for a ‘one-size fits all approach to remote working, as they understand that each employee is different. Why is Joan who is a single mother of two teenage boys working to the same life design conditions as recently graduated John who is living at home with his parents?

Encourage honest conversations

Once the two-week audit is completed, giving your employees permission to be honest about how they would like to design their life is a great way to connect at a deeper level and build that foundational trust that has always been a little shaky under the old myth that ‘if I can’t see you then you can’t be productive’.

Build in a non-work performance goal(s)

This is a big one, and really shows the leap of faith in your employees and your care for them. Discuss with them one goal that is related to life, something that is achievable and not over the top that encourages them to embrace the concept of life design. In my experiment, Greg was rewarded for going for a walk on the beach with his partner twice a week. It shows that you see the human and not just the worker and goes past the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ approach to new ways of working.

It’s not just about agreeing that your employees can work from home two to three days a week. That’s a lazy approach to something that has so much more potential to turbocharge trust and create an environment that will have potential employees knocking down the door to join your business.

Work-life balance is a concept that is dead or at very best, on life support.

Work is part of your life…

Life design is the new way of working.

It starts with you making a few small changes in mindset to reap the rewards in igniting trust, efficiency, productivity and employee engagement.

Don’t get left behind.

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