Trying to maintain a work-life balance has often been likened to juggling, but a good leader knows how to disrupt that circus act for their teams.

Despite the majority of employees and job seekers valuing work-life balance, 77 percent have experienced burnout in their current workplaces, according to a 2023 Zippia report. In addition to self-imposed “perfectionism,” many employees in the report named “company culture” and “supervisors” as significant barriers to achieving their preferred personal and professional equilibrium.

By prioritizing work-life balance, companies foster a happier, healthier workforce — which ultimately benefits their bottom line. The Zippia report also found that good work-life balance is tied to improved team morale, better employee retention and increased productivity.

At the three workplaces featured in this article, leaders are committed to promoting a robust separation between personal and professional life. Through open and honest discussions, they inquire about their employees’ workstyle preferences, home lives and red-flag behaviors, such as excess timesheet hours, neglected PTO or email responses during vacation.

By setting explicit expectations, modeling boundaries and adopting systems for optimizing workflows, these leaders — from Xero, Vendavo and PAIRIN — empower their employees to embrace sustainability and leave the juggling to the clowns.

Matthew Coons, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Lead, The Americas and UK/EMEA, Xero

How do you encourage your team members to maintain a good work-life balance?

Work-life balance is going to be unique to each person. For some, it may pertain to their ability to be remote. Some may value flexibility for when they start and finish their work days, while others may seek more of a work-life integration with community and belonging in their workplace.

It begins with encouraging team members to identify what they see value in and then ensuring you have the right tools and policies to support them. It’s important to make this a regular point of conversation, too, especially during team meetings. It can be helpful to hear how others, including leaders, are finding their work-life balance. That level of transparency provides implicit permission for those on their team to do the same.

How do you gauge team members’ work-life balance? If it appears imbalanced, what do you do to help right the ship?

I take both a qualitative and quantitative approach to checking in. I see if people on the team are taking personal leave to recharge and mitigate burnout. If not, it’s important to understand why they aren’t doing so.

If it’s more of a day-to-day work-life balance concern, such as early mornings and late nights, I approach the conversation with support in mind. I ask: What would they need to be able to sign off at the end of the day? How can work be distributed through the rest of the team? Work that has become a daunting task for someone with tight time restraints may be a development opportunity for someone else looking to grow their career in the organization.

How do you keep work-life balance in mind when it comes to planning out projects and assigning work?

At Xero, we want to ensure that we keep work-life balance top of mind with a geographically dispersed team. When kicking off a project that includes team members around the globe, we set expectations around asynchronous work.

The keys to this are regularly scheduled asynchronous project updates, whether they be weekly or biweekly, that are recorded and shared to all team members globally. This keeps the same information across the working group to reduce the need for early mornings or late nights.

We also utilize an Asana board or another project management system to keep track of milestones and deliverables. This allows people to work in a style that fits them and schedule their days around their needs outside of work. Clarity in outcomes keeps the focus on the outputs and allows people to work in their own ways.

Finally, we encourage people to share their upcoming leaves and ensure that work is distributed across the team. If someone is away for an extended period, we make sure there is a designated representative from the team to cover the work while they are away.

Please read the full article here, originally published by Xero in Built In Colorado.