[00:00:00] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think these days, if you listen to a lot podcasts, like, like I certainly do, um, you hear about this idea of like the hustle culture that always really on thing. 

[00:00:09] **Scott:** It's the whole, do you live to work or work to live? I dunno if it's more prevalent in startups, but there's certainly that you're working flat out. You're just giving up your life to work. And as we will explore, that comes at a cost and you know, what's realistically sustainable.

And there's some scary stats actually. So around 80% of employees in the UK experience stress and burnout, and we talked about burnout. Check out our other episode on burnout. And three quarters of a million in 2023, 24 suffered from depression or anxiety, work-related stress, and that led to, believe it or not, 16.4 million work days lost in that year, which is just crazy.

The cost of the organizations, and of course, people.

[00:00:56] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, I, I, I, I think those stats are, are horrendous. You know, the damage, uh, and the, and the problems that this always on culture, this always working culture is, is causing us. And I think what we'll want to want to do in this podcast is let's explore what work-life balance really means. Um, some of those challenges. people face when they're trying to balance, uh, work and home. And Actually talk about practical tips and strategies, um, that people can, can use. But I think what I'd like to do is, is let's reframe. Uh, work life balance really around what we mean by the challenge that people face. And from a psychological perspective, um, work life balance is very much around your sense of control.

, And really what we need to understand is this, this idea of what's called locus of control. all of us have a mix of what's known as an internal and an external locus of control and the internal locus of control.

It sounds a bit fancy really, but it's this idea that I make decisions for myself. I'm in charge of my life, I'm in charge of what I do, external locus of control, perhaps unsurprisingly. Implies that I have no control over what's happening to me. I have no control, uh, in terms of my work and my life.

Now when it comes to this work life balance. I think the challenge is many people feel they don't have that control of where they work, what they working on, how often they work, how long they work, and I think it's that that sort of always on culture thing again, is that productivity culture that we're talking about.

[00:02:30] **Scott:** Yeah, and I think that balance has definitely gone a completely off kilter for, for many people, especially since, you know, hybrid working and COVID and, and actually where is the line if people are working from home and they decide I'm finished for the day, is there an expectation that they are still.

You know, do they feel that pressure? Like my home is my office, so does that mean I have to answer emails at seven at night or at weekends? And that's a slippery slope in my experience and people I've worked with as well. Where actually when, when does it stop? Is it acceptable for your boss to call you when you're on holiday?

[00:03:08] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Mm.

[00:03:08] **Scott:** And do you feel obliged to answer it? And I think that blurring has affected lots of people. And it's not just, you know, hybrid working, it's people in the office as well. They go home at the end of the day, they go home for the weekend, expecting to have finished work, and then some of their bosses are sending emails on Saturday morning.

And then if they get a notification on their phone for that, it puts that pressure on, again, as you've said, that feeling, I'm not really in control of my own home life now, and that's gonna have significant impact, isn't it?

[00:03:38] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, so I say that I think the first point really is that this work-life balance is very much around a sense of control. What we've got then in, in modern workplaces very often is this blurring of boundaries, and there's a dual nature of that pressure, which is that external expectations as. You know, your workplace are expecting you to answer emails at, you know, 10 o'clock at night, but also your own personal drive. And as we talked about in, in previous episodes, they sometimes clash and they sometimes cause that, that stress and tension. So what we need to do is we need to observe that, that feeling that we have. And that, that stress that we're creating ourselves. The challenge as you point out is that we carry, you know, I've got my phone on my desk here, I'm sure you've got your phone, uh, with you as well. We all have these devices on all the time. So there's a blurring of the boundaries between work, uh, and home life. 

[00:04:33] **Scott:** I think the environment has a big part to play as well. So I certainly found during COVID, I set up a desk in a spare bedroom. I was lucky to have that spare bedroom. Not a lot of people had, they were, you know, working from the kitchen table and, and other things. Um, and in that room, I, I was very fortunate to have my drum kit in there.

And what I found was that despite being home most of the time, or all of the time because of COVID, I stopped playing the drums.

[00:04:57] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Okay.

[00:04:58] **Scott:** And I, I did, it took me a while to realize why, and actually spoke to somebody else and they said, well that's where you do your work now? So it suddenly became this place where.

I was working and then when work finished, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any more time in that room. As much as I enjoyed work, of course, but you know, it's that, that blurring of the boundary where actually this is the playroom, but it's also a workroom. And in my experience, it didn't work as both, so.

I think that impact cognitively on you as well is actually is very different as we've explored with remote working episode is actually that transition from the home to the office becomes even more blurred and I think that's gonna have that impact as well on, you know, the stress and the burnout.

[00:05:43] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Well, it's, it's interesting you say that, and it's, it's interesting that you, you stopped your, your drumming often. The re the research suggests that when people don't have that sense of control, they will often sideline. Social life. They'll sideline their family, they'll sideline their fitness and health regimes, and that stress, uh, it compounds on itself.

So yeah, this lack of control that people feel this always on culture, this, this expectation that this go, go, go, go, go has so many negative impacts. And one of the impacts that people will, maybe people listening to this will, you don't, you don't switch off. You can't switch off and you're constantly worried about, you know, work.

You are constantly thinking about work and people will be thinking about it as they go to sleep. , People can't sleep, they can't get to sleep, or they're waking up in the night ruminating, you know, worrying about something they're gonna do the next day, or they've, they've not managed to get through their, their email inbox.

So it's a huge problem. And, you know, the, the effects are very, very toxic if we don't sort this out.

[00:06:47] **Scott:** One of the questions I think organizations need to be asking themselves is are they providing support for their employees? So do they have employee assistance programs, things like that? Do they have support for people who are suffering from burnout and work-life balance?

Because actually it, it is an organization's responsibility to support their employees with that as well as an individual responsibility to push back, to challenge, to say, actually this is unreasonable. Those kind of things. But from a, an organization perspective and a leadership perspective, having these, uh, support mechanisms in place.

Really can pay dividends in terms of helping support the workforce with these challenges. And again, it obviously comes down to leadership style and behaviors and cultures. We, as we've been exploring, but I think it's really important for those employee assistance programs to be in place. 

[00:07:36] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think you're absolutely right, Scott, that if an organization hasn't got some sort of employee assistance program, EAPs as I'll often referred to actually taking one up. You know, starting one, beginning, one within the organization, send a signal to the team that you do care about their mental health.

You do care about their. Psychological wellbeing. So yeah, taking one of these programs up or beginning one of these programs is really important. But what I'd like to talk about is what you can also do as an individual. So I think the, the organization has a responsibility and then we as individuals can actually take steps as well.

Now, we've talked about in, in previous episodes about having difficult conversations, but what you can do. Um, as a, as an individual, as you say, you go and talk to your manager, go and talk to hr, but there are things that you can do. So for example, if you are able to keep up that exercise, you know it, exercise is even more important when you're stressed.

I. working. Yeah, I know it, it seems like the easy solution is to not go for that run. It's to not go to the gym. You know, I'm really busy. I must get this project finished. I'm gonna not walk, walk the dog, poor dog. You know, but you should try and get that exercise in. may maybe somebody that could try something else, like, I dunno, taking up yoga. Um, mindfulness has been something that's been quite popular in, in sort of the, the popular culture for some time recently. So trying to do. for yourself. Ideally, you've got a workplace that is supporting you with EAP programs, but, but try to cope with that stress. Um, the organization is helping you with some of these techniques, but what can you do as an individual to really that stress?

For example, did you pick up the drumming again? Are you, are you still drumming to really stress? Does that, does that

[00:09:23] **Scott:** Uh. I wish I was, my drum kit's currently in the garage 'cause I've moved house and, uh, in transition period at the moment. So it will be coming out in a nice, dedicated room hopefully when we move house again.

But I, I, I agree. I think also it's. Individuals taking responsibility in setting boundaries with their colleagues and with their employers. Now, again, very easy to say. It does depend on the culture and expectations, but it's actually saying I'm on holiday, so I won't be answering my phone, or I am.

It's the weekend. You know, I get that there will be times when the organization needs you and says, look, we've got a critical launch coming up. Or you know, can you just be available? But the danger is that slips into just, it's expected all the time. So I think it's important for individuals to feel that no, you have a right actually under human rights, for example, but also law that.

You can't, people cannot take the mickey out of you. I try, I nearly swore then. But actually being able to stand up for yourself and your rights and say, no, this isn't acceptable. And if you're feeling this pressure and this, this expectation this always on, you are perfectly entitled to have those difficult conversations and say.

No, that's not acceptable. I think you're asking too much of me, and again, I'm not saying this is easy, but what I'm saying is don't just roll over and think, well, it's inevitable that's, I just have to live with this. It's important to try and set some of those boundaries as well.

[00:10:51] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** it is, and it is interesting you talk about boundaries. I think what we forget is the way that we work now in the past was actually, you know, a weird, uh, way we used to live. Everybody was like farmers. Everybody was peasant. We'd get up at dawn and we'd work until dusk, and now we have electric lights and we get up with alarm clocks.

You know, the way we live now. Isn't like set in stone. We can change and there are companies that are trying to do different things. There's this, you heard of this whole idea of the four day working week, like why do we work five days now? Clearly some people work flexi hours, some people work part-time hours.

Of course, people have much more varied working patterns now, but the entire idea of the Monday to Friday, pattern is actually relatively recent. There was this pressure. When, uh, we had, uh, unions and, you know, people needed, um, um, people would often work. I remember my, my, um, grandfather would, would tell me stories of, they used to work six days a week.

So I come from, um, the industrial West Midlands. He might be able to tell from my accent, but they used to work six days a week. Now most people will work maybe five days a week. some companies are, are trying to, uh, experiment with four day working weeks. And some of the researcher was a, a, a campaign or a piece of, um, researcher, um, in the UK where they had, um, um, I think it was like 60 odd companies were trying this four day working week out.

There's nearly 3000 employees amongst those, uh, 60 odd companies. And the majority after the end of the trial of trying four day week, uh, most of the companies have kept that four day week. What's really interesting though is that you've got companies going down from five day working weeks to four day working weeks. Innovation went up, productivity went up, stress and ill health, um, went down. as I say, what I'm saying here is we have to realize that the way we work is not fixed. We can change if there's a motivation. And a lot, a lot of the way that we work is, is just habit. Isn't

[00:13:00] **Scott:** Yeah. And I, yeah, and that, those, the stats from those, the four day workweek trials, and I know some people whose companies have, uh, kept it going because, well. This works, and it just doesn't surprise me because we know how much time is wasted

[00:13:17] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:13:17] **Scott:** in organizations with bureaucracy, with pointless meetings, with wasted time.

Actually, that was just filler really for getting work done. So if you've got that focus and if you've got that day, that extra day where people can recharge, they get their energy back, they can do the things that you can only do on weekdays, you know that. It's just a no brainer for me as, and I can see why it's worked because yeah, you've, you've suddenly got that focus.

You've suddenly lost, you know,

[00:13:48] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:13:48] **Scott:** all those pointless meetings. We can't afford to have those anymore. We need to make sure with the time we've got it is actually productive and effective. I.

[00:13:55] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** W I'm sure you know the phrase work gets done in the time allocated to it. So if, if you've given me five days, I will probably take five days. Now we've gotta be careful because sometimes projects people don't have enough time to, I'm sure people will be listening to this screaming, I don't have enough time.

But generally speaking. The, the length of time people have is what they will fill. And if I'm being paid for five days a week, I will make sure that my work takes five days a week. what this, uh, these four day working week experiments have shown is that work differently. So are there any other sort of working patterns that you would recommend as a productivity expert that people could, could, could look at to try and allow people to have that work life balance?

It's not just the four day working week. I mean, there are other, other approaches aren't there? I think.

[00:14:39] **Scott:** Yeah. So there's, there's a number of different approaches that the companies take. One that I find fascinating is the, uh, very generous or unlimited time off. So I think I, I think it was Richard Branson's Virgin did it that you could. Employers could take as much annual leave as they wanted.

[00:14:56] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:14:57] **Scott:** There was no, there was no rule.

Um, and that's, that takes some courage, doesn't it, really? And, and the argument I would say with that is if the organization and culture is that good, you can confidently do that because people will enjoy coming to work. Now, there will be exceptions where people probably just. Take the mickey

but, but fundamentally, there's, it's, again, it's showing that trust in the employees. It's showing that it's about the value you deliver rather than the volume of work you deliver. And I've touched on that in a previous episode with you, Andrew, but.

[00:15:28] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Mm.

[00:15:28] **Scott:** know, there's, there's various things like flexible Fridays, um, nine day fortnight, uh, alternating four day weeks

[00:15:37] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah.

[00:15:37] **Scott:** doesn't have to be completely fixed.

I worked in a, an organization that had what we called flexi time. Previously, I. Where you had core hours, where you had to be in, I think it was between 10 and three. But other than that, the, there was flexibility around when you started. When you finished you could carry over flexi days. So there's a lot of different options.

And as, as you said earlier, I don't, I think we don't need to be stuck in the dark ages of the nine to five, you know, five days a week anymore. And that as we've, as we've shown the stats out there, demonstrates that. It isn't the most effective way to do business these days.

[00:16:13] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** no, no, no. It really isn't. And I think if you were, uh, you were being logical about it, what you would say as a manager is, I just want the results. And what in theory you would say is, I don't care how long you take, just give me the results. That's not how. People work. They, they think, well, I'm

[00:16:30] **Scott:** I.

[00:16:30] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** you from nine till five, Monday to Friday, you will have to be here nine till five, Monday to Friday, and then I'm gonna fill your hours with pointless meetings and loads of emails. And then you wonder why people are stressed and going off ill. So as I say, if you, if you were completely logical about this, you what's called these, you know, results only workplaces, they're called, I don't care where you do it, I don't care how you do it. I don't care how long you take, just give me. The results.

Now, that's what managers would say they are looking for, but we're stuck, as I've been saying, we're stuck into this pattern of, you know, 40 hour working weeks. But I think what we also need to to point out is that it varies from person to person. I'm sure somebody's listening to this thinking. Oh wow. I would love that sort of flexibility. And somebody else, it just wouldn't suit them. They, they need to be able to go into work, you know, and they want that time away from the house because they've got a stressful life at home, or they just feel good to go in. So I think we, we've got to emphasize this is always around personal choice. Uh, personal freedom and it, it needs to be tailored to the individual and clearly it needs to be tailored to the role. I mean, if you are working in some sort of office where you can go and work from home, great. You might be front facing, um, in a hospital or you know, a dental practice where there's no way I can. It can be flexible. So, so I say, I just want to flag up that we, we, we have to acknowledge that everybody's role is different, everybody's situation is different, but wherever possible, employers and organizations should offer that flexibility. what we're talking about, I guess, isn't it? It's just that

[00:18:08] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:18:09] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** that flexibility, whatever is possible and sensible within reasonable constraints, I guess.

[00:18:15] **Scott:** So, as I alluded to earlier, there are obligations the employers have, they have to seriously consider any flexible work requests, and they have to justify why they may refuse that. Uh, so it's worth somebody who's considering, actually, I think I'm, things are unfair for me.

You do have rights and obligations under UK law, and of course the benefit for the employer is if they offer these kind of this kind of support for employees, then they're gonna re have better chances of retaining employees. They're going to have more opportunities to recruit people because they're gonna go be going up against employers that are offering better support and better flexibility.

So it's a win on both sides really, is what we're saying here.

[00:19:00] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Let's start now thinking about how you'd implement this. Um, so we've got this idea of being flexible. would you start? Is there any sort of starting point if you were advising a company on trying to be more flexible and, and offer people that chance to have a greater work life balance? Any, any suggestions?

[00:19:15] **Scott:** We talked about largely the problem is around the culture of the organization. I think that's where it starts and that starts with the leaders and the managers. So I think they need to role model the behavior that they expect from their employees. So one thing I've seen happen all too often is, uh, the manager sends, 'cause you know, they're committed and they're enthusiastic, or they're stressed out and overloaded, all the stuff that we talk about here, and they're sending their emails in the middle of the night.

Or they are sending them on the weekends, and of course their employees receive those emails. So either on the Monday when they're checking them again, or if they get a notification on their phone and they go, oh, the boss is emailing me at 10 o'clock at night, maybe they expect me to be responding to this.

So I think those leaders need to. Stop doing that or do it using some of the tips that you can use like delaying your email. So schedule your emails. You can queue them up. If you wanna send a hundred emails over the weekend, set them to not be delivered until the Monday morning

it's pending, but it won't bother your employees and they will only see it as being sent at that time in the morning.

[00:20:19] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** yeah,

[00:20:19] **Scott:** And also. Sticking to lunch breaks, actually respecting your employees annual leave. You know, don't call them, don't expect them. Just maybe you are really super committed and more committed to them.

Don't expect them to necessarily be as committed as you

So yeah, I think that the leaders need to set the tone and that will then filter down to the employees because there definitely is that pressure.

Employees will feel if the boss is behaving in this way, then they probably expect me to be as responsive and behave in the same way.

[00:20:49] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think what we should also encourage managers and leaders to do is to empower their workers, you know, running workshops, um, making this a priority in, in terms of team training. Put it into the internal com, uh, company newsletter. Reinforce it over and over and over again because what you'll find is that your employees, they will hear you say it, but they may not believe you for quite a while that they, you know, yeah. We don't want you to answer emails after 6:00 PM They won't believe you for a while.

So empowering your employees with workshops. Maybe what you can get is colleagues to share their own boundary setting ideas. You might find that somebody in your team has a brilliant way to switch off. You know, they might, there might be somebody that you work with has a really good mechanism for, I don't know, they get in their car and they listen to podcasts or listen, hopefully listen to this podcast.

Maybe you don't listen to this podcast to switch off from work. 'cause we talk only about work. But you know, you, you, you wanna share those best practices internally as well. I. And I think you've mentioned, and we'll talk about, I'll talk about culture, is you want that culture of safe space where people can speak up, they can tell you that they're feeling stressed, they can, um, advocate for this.

So yeah, setting the example, but also empowering your employees. So if you've got this working, any suggestions you think on how we make it stick any longer term sort of methods you think, Scott, about how, how you'd make this actually embed into the, into the culture longer term.

[00:22:13] **Scott:** So I think with anything, it's good to. Reflect and celebrate that success. So something that I advise teams to do is to have, and again it varies in terms of team size and, and culture and what works, but to have a regular team check in and, every fortnight I would run it with my team. We would have a, a session where we would say, right, what's worked well over the last fortnight?

What's not worked so well? What are we gonna start doing? That we haven't done before, what, what are we gonna stop doing that isn't working and what are we gonna continue doing that that is working? So actually that regular check-in and over, over that time, you build that continual improvement culture.

And this absolutely lends itself to this level of is the workload right? Am I as a leader, giving you the support you need to have flexibility to not feel pressure at home and stress at home. Is the work enjoyable? What are the blockers that get in the way of you being successful? For me, that was a really powerful, effective way to engage with a team and to create a safe and open space for them to, you know, give you that feedback and let you know what's working.

So in terms of embedding that and keeping that going, I think that regular cycle, that regular review is, is really, really key.

[00:23:24] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, absolutely. And, and if we are constantly improving our, our work processes, if we're becoming more efficient, we should generate more slack for people to be able to manage their own time. And, and thing I would say is that, you know, it's working if you are seeing. A reduction in ill health. In your team, you are seeing fewer days of absenteeism. You are, if you're tracking things like employee retention, you shouldn't have so many people, you know, handing in their notice. So I think if you're starting this, and one thing I would recommend is that organizations trial this, maybe they run a sort of, you know, a little test for maybe a month or something, or they, they have part the team try this out in, in an equitable way. Then you would see the stats. You'd start to see. Positive feedback from your team, you'd start to see that, you know, reduction in, in health and track those metrics. 'cause that would be the real sign of whether this is making a a difference. And the something I'm very big on is employee engagement surveys. do run an employee employee engagement survey, which is basically saying to people, how do you feel about the work if you are allowing people to have that increased? Sense of control, you should see a greater sense of engagement in your team, higher levels of motivation. And then that's when it becomes real, it becomes valuable to the organization. Final points for me, really, I think this is very much a, a, a sort of, uh, issue of trust. Um, and if you trust your workforce, if you trust your team and you show that you trust them, then that in itself, going back to what we started with, that relieves a lot of that stress because you show that you care about them and you show that you believe in them, and that makes a huge difference to how people feel about their work.

[00:25:03] **Scott:** Yeah, and I'd say again, this is, this is linked to that productivity and the effectiveness of the teams and the processes because that just piles the pressure on. Again, if, if people are struggling to be effective in their jobs, that is gonna lead to. Increasing the time it takes to do things. And what does that mean?

Well, I haven't got enough time to do the work that I'm trying to do because I am. Struggling with the organization itself. So what happens is that spills out into, well, I'll work on it in evenings 'cause then I'm not dealing with hundreds of meetings or I work on the weekends 'cause that's the only time I can get the head space to do it.

So again, it's really important for individuals to, to push back and to challenge and to protect their time to block out that personal time. And you know, it's a two-way thing. The organization has responsibility, but as we said, also the individual does as well. And hopefully these tips have helped them start to get that back and try and get that balance back.

And it would be remiss of us not to mention, of course, that we both offer support for organizations with this kind of thing. We run workshops and coaching for leaders specifically on these areas. So, we do have our details linked in the show notes.

[00:26:14] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, we would love to help you out if you need any help with your work life balance.

Thank you for listening to the Work Unraveled podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next one. 

[00:26:28] **Scott:** If you'd like Andrew or me to help you or your business, whether it is for team productivity, leadership, coaching, or communication skills, our website addresses are in the show notes.

Thanks, and until the next time.