Tips For A Healthy Work-Life Balance

Whether it comes to you or your employees, a healthy work-life balance plays a critical part in wellness, happiness, and productivity. Naturally, you want to create a culture that enables this for you and your team so your fitness business thrives. To make that easy for you, we’ve got six tips that will help you set the right tone and environment for a truly happy and effective team.

Establish boundaries

It’s important to uphold boundaries when it comes to having a healthy work-life balance. Over the last few generations, there have been countless changes in what is valued from a socioeconomic perspective. We used to work in manufacturing and stay with the same company for 20-30 years. We’d clock in and out at specific times, and work was work and home was home.

Now we have a society that is highly mobile and connected through technology. Plus, many of our daily tasks are now computer based. This transition allowed work and home to blend more than ever before. You couldn’t take the production line home with you to work on while you watched TV, but you can very easily do that with your laptop. Because of that, we now find we are working longer hours, and it’s encroaching on our home-life.

All this has caused the need for us to be aware of maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Set expectations

If you want your team to have a healthy work-life balance, you have to tell them it’s your expectation. You’ll also need to be specific as to what that means. It might mean something to one person and something completely different to another person. Communication with your team is key.

Walk the talk

Managers can’t preach work-life balance but send emails out late into the night. Clearly, that’s sending a mixed message, and it typically doesn’t work. If you work too much, they probably will too. Eventually, that makes everyone less effective and less productive. Urge yourself to walk away from the gym when needed. Set a good example for a healthy team. Doing so will positively impact you, your team and your members.

Collaborate

Part of work life balance is taking time off when needed. This means you need a team that will help cover for one another when someone is out. Establish a system for your instructors to request class subs and encourage them to cover for each other. You can even stress the importance of this by jumping in to cover a class from time to time.

Establish good time management skills

Walking away from the gym at the end of the day requires good time management skills. It’s easier to wrap things up when everyone is super productive while at work.

Accept the benefits

It’s not uncommon for fitness business owners to say they know the benefits of work-life balance but still work to the point of becoming frustrated and burnt out anyway. To get around this, you should examine your values and business goals. If you feel you have to work in over-drive for a period of time, make a promise to yourself that you’ll let off the gas when that period of time is over.

Work-life balance is a healthy mix of time at work and time unplugged from work (that includes not taking calls or checking work email). Studies show that employees who regularly take time away are healthier, more productive, more creative and have better stamina on projects and tasks. Having a team of tired and overworked employees can lead to higher staff turnover, which can really affect your bottom line.