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Small business work-life balance policies
It may be sometimes hard for small business owners to accommodate employees’ work-life balance. Implementation of work-life balance policies may be affected by factors such as perceived cost, lack of time and resources to devote to effective implementation, lack of knowledge about suitable initiatives, lack of know-how in setting up flexible work practices, and number of employees.
These factors may form a barrier for small businesses to implement policies. However, these barriers can often be overcome to a greater or lesser extent. There are various initiatives that business owners can undertake that are relatively cheap, easy to implement, and would not limit their capacity to run their business, including:
- consider that an employee may have family commitments when planning meetings, overtime, travel, relocation or planning days
- discuss work, family and life style issues in staff meetings
- inform employees about the Child Care Information Service , which is a free state-wide information service provided by the Department of Communities
- provide a list of the child care centres closest to your business
- develop keep-in-touch programs for employees on maternity, parental or any other form of extended leave
- recognise the importance of families by organising open days or social events (e.g. family picnic) that encourage the participation of families
- provide employees with access to a telephone to check on the health and safety of family members
- ensure that employees take their annual leave every year
- introduce flexible work hours
- introduce make-up time providing employees with the opportunity to attend personal matters without the organisation loosing work hours
- allow staff to take some of their annual leave in single days
- discourage employees working on weekends or staying back late if not necessary
- introduce a workplace policy for breastfeeding mothers
- provide information on the organisation’s work-life balance policies as part of the induction of new employees
Last updated 21 July 2009
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