Page 193 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 2 181

• Enforce sensible Preventing Burnout
milestones.
A great Web site to help
Set the Right Conditions with work-life balance
issues is www.employersforwork-
It’s hard for any employees lifebalance.org.uk.This site contains
to achieve work-life bal- case studies,resources,benchmarking,
ance if the atmosphere in and even materials to help build an
which they work militates internal case for investing in work-life
against it at every step. balance initiatives. It’s a “must-visit” for
You should ensure that the anyone interested in keeping employ-
conditions are right to ees from burning out at an early stage.
encourage all of your
employees to achieve an appropriate balance by adopting
appropriate policies.
A necessary first stage is to set out in writing balanced
work-life policies and then enforce adherence to them. (As we’ll
see in a moment, however, that alone is not enough.)
What areas should you cover in your work-life policies? Your
organizational culture will dictate the exact contents, but your
policies should cover the following as a minimum:

• Flexible working: Set clear guidelines for flexible working
opportunities. (Include a simple application process to
make sure people take the next step.)
• Leave/vacation: Clarify annual vacation allowance and
the policies surrounding maternity leave, time off for sab-
baticals, study leave, unpaid leave, and any other varia-
tions you may provide.
• Employee support: Detail any support you provide for
education, child care, loans, transportation, special equip-
ment, or anything else for your employees.
Monitoring Relationships
You can set down clear guidelines, but it’s almost impossible to
oversee every employee’s activity and check if he or she is tak-
ing advantage of the support available. You need a quick way to
assess if your employees are maintaining a reasonable balance,
without micro-managing the process. There are three ways to