Maintaining a work-life balance for employees is crucial for organizations that are focusing on their success. This can be achieved through the maintenance of positive working relationships and this eventually contributes to the retention of good employees. The paper focuses on how organizations and their employees can maintain w work-life balance through positive working relationships and how this eventually contributes to the maintenance of good employees. Aspects of maintaining positive working relationships such as good people skills, emotional intelligence and job satisfaction are discussed in the paper and their connection to a work-life balance for both employer and employee are well-articulated. The paper further demonstrates how a positive working environment eventually contributes to maintaining good employees.
Maintaining a Work-Life Balance
A satisfied and motivated workforce is all an organization needs to gain a competitive advantage in its industry. Such workers are happy and highly efficient in their working environments such that organizations become dependent on their output and are fearful of loosing them. The current business environment is competitive to the extent that every company is looking for the best way to retain its best workforce. Executives and human resource departments are cognizant of this competition and are therefore doing their best to keep good employees including spending time, effort and money. Even so, many working environments seem unfavorable for numerous good employees and these individuals are often looking for better places that offer them better working conditions and benefits. It is why retaining good employees is an issue of contention for many organizations. It is prudent to therefore analyze how organization can retain good employees while maintaining healthy working relationships to ensure they promote the maintenance of a work-life balance at all levels in the organization.
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A healthy work-life balance is a critical area for consideration in every organization. The absence of this balance would mean that employees are straining in one aspect and would therefore not be as effective as is required in the other. Organizations need employees to give their best to ensure that goals are achieved and customers are satisfied. It means that when employees cannot deliver as expected, the organization suffers in a similar manner ( Rožman et al., 2017) . It is therefore important for organization to frequently scrutinize the work-life balance levels for their employees to help improve their degree of satisfaction in the working environment and when outside of work. An employee is said to have achieved a work-life balance when he or she feels satisfaction while at work and in their personal spaces like their home or when in the presence of family ( Wong et al., 2017) . Current working environments often have increased demands on their employees and push these individuals into heightened concentration in their output at the workplace while ignoring their well-being outside work. Such strain in the working environment will result in issues like increased fatigue and stress which eventually strains the employee and their families. This would mean that the person is extremely frustrated while at home and this affects their effort to achieve their goals while at work. an imbalance results in such an instance and this gravely affects how the individual performs while at work.
Organizations are gradually becoming aware of the importance of this work-life balance and understand that it needs to be maintained in equal measure to ensure employees are always at their best. A healthy work-life balance also ensures that employees are generally satisfied in their working environments and will therefore work on giving their best ( Buzza, 2017) . It means that a work-life balance is one of the aspects that contribute to developing good employees. It also means that for these aspects to be achieved for staff, employers need to recognize how to maintain healthy working relationships. It is an indication that all three aspects of the working environment, for employees and employer, are intertwined and need to be worked upon with similar effort.
Snell et al. (2016) recognize that every company has strategic knowledge employees who are central to the organization’s strategic goals. These employees possess unique skills that are extremely difficult to replace. The skills are often linked directly to organizational strategic goals and therefore critical for the company’s eventual success. These are examples of good employees that every organization makes every effort to ensure that they do not leave the company. These efforts include maintenance of healthy working relationships ( Snell et al., 2016) . Here, employers will exert every effort is helping such employees achieve a work-life balance. People spend a significant amount of their lifetime in their working environments and maintaining healthy working relationships contributes significantly to job satisfaction and the eventual maintenance of a work-life balance.
Organizations that ensure to develop good working relationships among all its employees and those in management eventually make all parties comfortable around one another. Such comfort in interactions ensures employees feel confident and can easily brainstorm, voice their opinions and develop new ideas that advance their working environments ( Combs, 2017) . A level of corporation such as this means that teamwork is supported by all and everyone is open to change, has the freedom to be creative and innovative. When teamwork becomes this successful, job satisfaction increases and productivity soars to unimaginable levels and a work-life balance is easily achieved ( Combs, 2017) . Healthy working relationships in the organization also mean that management has little to no focus on negative relationships and can work more on achieving organizational goals.
Horner and Ivacko (2019) identify that the most critical relationship in the organization is that between the employee and manager. Maintaining close and positive interactions with employees ensures that managers learn their employees and understand what motivates them to give their best. This eventually encourages employees to be free with their leadership and can easily offer productive input when it is needed ( Horner & Ivacko, 2019) . It further means that employees do not feel pushed to achieve organizational goals but are intrinsically motivated to work due to the conducive working environment advanced by positive working relationships. Such environments ensure that strategic knowledge workers who are at the center of the organization’s survival feel well-connected with their leadership.
Such employees will find it difficult to look for better working environments because all they need if availed by their current organizations. Managers who understand the value of such employees will not only develop and maintain healthy working relationships with them but will ensure to make long-term commitments with them. Such managers will invest in the continued development of their valued employees and ensure that they provide benefits that keep their preferred workforce in the organization ( Thibaul et al., 2017) . The employees are continuously trained and allowed to advance their careers as the fruits of such developments will eventually be experienced in their output. To a great extent, such employees will be treated in a manner that predicts them as equal contributors to the success of the organization. They are allowed the liberty to take credit for all they have contributed and rewarded according ( Thibaul et al., 2017) . Such organizational practices ensure that employees appreciate the working environment advanced by their management and this reflects in the achievement of organizational goals. In many instances, such employees will achieve more than the organization expects of them.
Managers need to ensure they understand the needs of their employees. This would only be possible if there is an already working and healthy relationship between these two parties, which eventually results in such concern for employees. Managers will also identify the value good employees add to the organization and work on understanding the needs of these employees ( Slatten et al., 2021) . Such insight means that organization can develop specific strategies that will focus on fulfilling employee needs. Once these needs are met, employees find it extremely easy to stay in their organizations and achieve what is expected of them ( Slatten et al., 2021) . Managers need to have good people skills to not only interact effectively with their customers but to interact efficiently with their employees.
Good people skills ensure that managers can collaborate with the employees, communicate effectively and address conflict in a healthy manner. These aspects of a manner ensure that commendable role models are set for the rest of the workforce and employees who are crucial for organizational success benefit from these people skills present in their managers ( Gupta & Garg, 2021) . This further compounds on the positive working relationship existent in the organization and ensure that companies can retain good employees. Emotional intelligence further contributes to healthy working relationships with employees and ensures that good employees are maintained in the organization.
Emotional intelligence requires managers to be aware of their emotions and how they handle them. Such awareness into one’s emotions ensures that the manager also becomes cognizant of the emotions of employees and recognizes how to best handle them without leading to conflict. As extremely emotional beings, it is highly likely that issues of emotions are rampant in any healthy environments ( Parker, 2018) . What sets a successful organization apart from the rest is how managers handle personal issues of emotions and those of others. When strategies for emotional intelligence are developed, working through issues in the workplace becomes extremely easy ( Parker, 2018) . This would mean that employees interact in a healthy working environment, experience positive working relationships all-round and are not willing to leave the organization. Everything they would want to find somewhere else is already availed in their current organization.
Overall, keeping good employees is deeply grounded in maintaining a work-life balance through positive working environments. maintaining healthy working relationships starts at the employee level where they corporate to the extent that effective team work in cultivated. They can then work together innovatively, creatively and in achieving organizational goals. This further encourages job satisfaction which helps in keeping good employees. Healthy working relationships between employees and managers further contribute to overall job satisfaction and the retention of good employees. Employers who engage closely with their valued employees ensure that their needs are met, their emotional needs are addressed and that conflicts are resolved in a healthy and efficient manner. When such aspects are encouraged and cultivated in the working environments, it is highly likely that valued employees will feel that they belong and will find it hard to leave. Therefore, these different characteristics in employers and the working environment ensure that a work-life balance is achieved for employees are that they will appreciate their working environments enough to stay.
References
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