Promoting and Managing Work-Life Balance

Team members are asked, in this exercise, to examine the work–life balance of an imaginary worker and suggest ideas for improvement.

Reconcile individual and organisational work–life balance needs to produce win–win situations.

Is your team suffering from a work-life imbalance? This diagnostic will help you to assess work-life balance needs and identify areas for improvement in your area of responsibility.

This diagnostic is designed to get managers thinking about their current attitude towards work–life balance. It asks probing questions to enable them to see their present action (or inaction) on work–life balance issues, and highlights areas that they may wish to act upon. Allow around 45 minutes for completion.

This diagnostic examines personal motivation and priorities in a number of areas related to work–life balance. It will help participants to clearly identify what they would like from their careers and their lives, and encourage them to think about how to make any changes they have deemed necessary. Allow around 45 minutes for completion.

This uses participants’ personal experiences of trying to influence their work–life balance in the past, or, alternatively, for planning how to influence it in future. Participants analyse the way they approached the situation in the past and make plans for improving on this when faced with similar situations again. Allow 40 minutes for completion.

An active exercise designed to get the whole team to consider the needs of the business, as well as their own. It will generate discussion on the issue and foster improved communication between the team and the manager. Allow one hour for completion.

An informal exercise designed to get a group to think about their work-life balance goals. Allow 40 minutes for completion.

This exercise encourages a group to envision their ideal work and life scenario, and to identify any steps they can take in order to turn this idyll into a reality. Allow 30 minutes for completion.

This exercise will give team members a clearer picture of what they want to get out of life and help them plan how to achieve any work–life balance goals they identify. Allow one hour and a quarter for completion.

This is an informal icebreaker exercise designed to encourage positive thinking when embarking on any goals. Participants will reflect on their own experiences to determine what makes a goal achievable and what hampers progress. Allow around 20 minutes for completion.

This exercise asks participants to consider what they would most like to achieve in their lifetime and to be remembered for, providing an ideal context for goal-setting. Allow 30 minutes for completion.