Flexibility Doesn’t Guarantee Work-Life Balance: 3 Ways Companies Can Set Better Boundaries

"During the height of the pandemic, I had to fight to find some semblance of work-life balance," said Daisy Lovelace, associate professor at Duke University, in a recent course on hybrid work. "It didn't feel like I was working from home — it started to feel like I lived at work."

Daisy isn't alone in that feeling, according to data in LinkedIn's new Talent Market Drivers report. Burnout rates have risen 9% in recent months, and while flexible work arrangements has been the fastest-growing priority for candidates during the pandemic, work-life balance is still the No. 1 priority for candidates overall.

According to Glint employee surveys, companies are doing a relatively good job of providing flexible work arrangements — but they're performing worse where it matters most: work-life balance.

In other words, flexibility doesn't guarantee better balance. In fact, LinkedIn and Glint data also shows that employees at the most remote-friendly companies are 32% more likely to struggle with work-life balance. 

LinkedIn's Chief Economist Karin Kimbrough, whose commentary is featured throughout the report, said that while "companies can sometimes conflate flexibility and work-life balance, [...] they're very different, and they're not equally controllable by the company."

Flexibility can be provided by employers relatively easily with just a change of company policy. Conversely, Karin said, "work-life balance is something that requires a kind of consent from both the employer and the employee — and it's often the worker who has to navigate those boundaries themselves."

So, what can companies actually do to help employees experience greater work-life balance? Read on to see how some companies are helping workers set clear boundaries and untangle their personal time from the so-called “endless digital workday.” 

Experiment with 4-day workweeks to potentially improve work-life balance without hurting productivity

We looked at how a shorter workweek was trending back in March, and the momentum behind this idea has only grown in recent weeks. 

"For many organizations, what you lose in labor time you gain in greater productivity on the job," said Will Stronge, co-author of a new book called Overtime: Why We Need a Shorter Working Week, in a recent story by NPR. "We can't concentrate all the time, particularly if you're overworked and burned out. So reducing the working week has reaped dividends in terms of productivity and worker well-being."

While some might find it hard to believe that fewer hours could result in greater productivity, a recent opinion piece from NBC News points out that businesses saw the exact same phenomenon nearly 100 years ago:

"In 1923, car manufacturer Henry Ford reduced his employees' working days from six to five. He, too, saw productivity increase as employees were expected to get more done when on the job."

Video game developer Eidos-Montréal recently announced they were moving to a four-day workweek, in an industry notorious for “crunch” — a term referring to frequent periods of overwork and burnout to meet tight deadlines. 

Governments around the world are also jumping on the trend in countries like Scotland and Spain. And earlier this month, U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez highlighted the need for a four-day workweek and called out a bill being considered in Congress called the "Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act."

Block off specific periods for downtime and time off across the entire organization

And even if your company isn't ready to explore a four-day workweek, emphasizing the importance of downtime can pay real dividends. According to Caroline Webb, senior advisor at McKinsey and author of How to Have a Good Day, "Giving people a chance to unplug isn't just a decent or moral thing to do. Breaks are needed for high performance."

Several companies, including LinkedIn, recently gave most employees a full week off. Crucially, these organizations didn't simply add a week of paid vacation — they coordinated around a specific week for almost everyone to take off. 

"Occasionally mandating that people take time off," Caroline says, "can be a useful signaling device as long as staff have time to plan for it in terms of childcare, work deliverables, client expectations and so on." It's a way for leadership to say, "'no, honestly, we're really serious about you getting some rest.'" 

For years, companies that offer "unlimited" time off have found that employees weren't taking much time off at all. Buffer even had to offer employees a $1,000 bonus to take more time off. A coordinated week off for everyone ensures employees are taking advantage of the vacation days afforded to them. 

Similarly, coordinating "no-meeting days" can allow workers to get things done more efficiently — which leaves more time to step away from work. Atlassian calls these "GSD Days," a playful acronym for "Getting S*** Done." The company suggests that for large organizations stretching over several time zones, Mondays (for Asia-Pacific orgs) and Fridays (for orgs in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). 

On the other hand, Facebook chose to eliminate all Wednesday meetings last year. Other companies, like OpenTent and Wilderness, also use the middle of the week to focus, calling these days “Deep Work Wednesdays” or DWWs.  

Don't overlook how caregiving benefits can also be a diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) issue 

While work-life balance clearly affects all workers, it's particularly important to women, who already shoulder a disproportionate amount of unpaid domestic labor. Highlighting the DEI aspects of work-life balance may help build institutional buy-in and support for such initiatives. 

According to LinkedIn's Talent Drivers survey data, "good work-life balance" was the single most important priority for both male and female candidates as of June 2021. But on average, women were more likely to prioritize it than men (66% of women listed it as a top priority vs. 61% of men). 

At the very start of the pandemic, Stanford University sociology professor Shelly J. Correll was already raising the alarm about how companies may be overlooking the gendered nature of work-life balance, and how the pandemic could exacerbate it. "The great majority of employees," she said in April 2020, "report experiencing conflict between the demands of work and the demands of family. For heterosexual couples, resolving this conflict is decidedly gendered, with women continuing to perform significantly more housework and childcare." 

Promoting better work-life balance at your company may make it a more appealing destination for women, or any employee balancing their professional lives with unpaid responsibilities. "Remember that in addition to being a hardworking, productive member of your team," Daisy Lovelace tells employers looking to support teams as offices reopen, "your employees have other roles in their personal lives."

"For example, caregiving isn't limited to parents," she says. "In some scenarios, your employees might need to care for elderly relatives, neighbors, or provide childcare for other family members. If your organization has resources to support this, remind them of their availability."

Final thoughts

Work-life balance was the No. 1 priority for candidates before the pandemic. The massive shift to remote work has only blurred the boundaries more and thrown this issue into stark relief. 

With the Great Reshuffle shaking up workforces, there's never been more urgency or incentive for companies to get work-life balance right. Those organizations that can set healthy boundaries stand to have a competitive edge when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. 

Methodology and notes

Gender identity isn't binary and we recognize that some LinkedIn members identify beyond the traditional gender constructs of “male” and “female.” If not explicitly self-identified, we have inferred the gender of members included in this analysis by classifying their first names as either male or female or by pronouns used on their LinkedIn profiles. Members whose gender could not be inferred as either male or female were excluded from this analysis.

Daisy Lovelace and Caroline Webb are both instructors on LinkedIn Learning. 

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