Suky talks about a few techniques recruiters can use when they feel like their work-life balance is suffering.
Transcription
Hi I’m Suky from Professional Selection. Today I’d like to talk about work-life balance. As you’ve heard in my previous videos I believe that there is a time and place for you to take your work home with you. Maybe an hour one evening a week maybe two depending on what stage you’re at. It’s sometimes a great time to get a hold of those candidates that simply can’t speak to you in a day. However, if you’re finding that it’s impacting your personal life then you really need to do something about it.
So here’s a couple of suggestions. First of all, during the day, value your own time in the office far more selfishly.
So when you’ve got a candidate that wants to meet you in a day, try and get him to meet you for coffee instead of lunch. You’ll be surprised at how many candidates will actually accommodate something like that. Now you can always find work to take home with you but the truth of the matter is, can you get that work done during the day? That’s got to be your aim.
Now also if you treat your personal time as an appointment in your diary, you’ll commit to it far more. We all have things that we do outside of work whether it’s playing a particular sport or taking the kids to baseball, it’s a firm commitment. So put that in your diary. I have a colleague here who’s been with us five, six years now and you will not see him in the office past ten-past-five on a Thursday because he plays hockey or football depending on which season it is. During a week two days at lunchtime you won’t see him because he commits to going to the gym for 30 minutes. That is confirmed, booked in his diary. The only time he moves any of them is if it’s so critical and every other option has failed.
So start treating your time selfishly. Now the other thing to this is if you’re actually committing and staying committed to your activities outside of work, it lets you let off steam. It gives you a chance to just de-stress and forget the day. It allows you to recharge, and most importantly allows you to keep a commitment not only to yourself but your family. Because at the end of the day if you’re not valuing your family time and your personal time and all you’re doing is work, something has to give.
So whether, as I said, whether it’s getting home to make sure that you read the bedtime story to your children before they go to bed, doesn’t matter what it is if it’s important to you put it in your diary. As always I’m sure there’s many different ways of letting off steam & getting that work-life balance. Would love to hear some of your tips, feel free to comment below.
Thanks for listening.
3