Let’s face it; work and life bleed into each other on a constant basis. Parents travel for business, have doctors appointments, get sick, children have PD days (every month), March Breaks, Christmas Holiday, the car needs to go in for maintenance, winter tires, and the dog needs to go to the vet. Life happens.
Has this ever happened to you? You arrive to work only to receive a phone call from your son or daughter at school saying he or she left an important assignment at home that morning and needs it right away. Then your boss stops by and asks whether you would mind taking over a colleague that’s on vacation file. And last night, your washing machine quit working, and you need it fixed it as soon as possible.
Finding the time to run errands, have a home appliance repaired, take the car in for an oil change, or make vacation arrangements, much less do the grocery shopping and laundry or taking on an additional project at work, can be hard when you work full time.
Employers realize that balancing work and personal life is challenging for their employees. Today’s savviest companies know that providing high quality perks can help them recruit and retain the very best employees.
Lisa Earle McLeod states quite eloquently in her article on HuffingtonPost.com “The reality is: If you want a meaningful career and a meaningful personal life, they’re going to bleed into each other. Constantly.” The only way to handle this is to accept that our work and life needs to blend, and it’s up to us to make it happen as smoothly as possible. “You don’t get a work life and a home life. You get one life. Don’t waste it trying to achieve balance.”
Smart companies are taking notice. Employee-focused perks are not exclusive to Fortune 500 companies. Smaller organizations are getting into the game because they know they face stiff competition for the best employees, and keeping a great employee is far more cost-efficient than managing turnover. And, of course, perks help to define the corporate culture. One popular perk to help with productivity and work-life-balance companies are offering are Concierge Services. The idea is to allow employees access to someone who in one phone call can plan their trips — both for work and leisure; find them a plumber, plan a dinner party, take their car in for an oil change or winter tires etc… Concierge companies as opposed to call centres are local, on the ground in your city, and know how to make things happen on a moments notice. Just make sure you’re doing your due diligence on your Concierge, the number one thing is to ensure that they are insured.
Typically, the word “Concierge” has a luxurious ring to it, but concierge services are not used only by 1% looking to charter private jets. Concierge services used to be associated with high-end hotels or celebrities, but the new Concierge is more about saving time.
Few would argue that time is one of the most precious commodities we seem to be losing. Making a living consumes the bulk of our days, leaving less time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
This complicates life, causing stress and lowering the quality of life.
Studies have shown that concierge services render invaluable benefits to the employers as well as the employees. It provides corporations a variety of professional and personal assistance options that can be made accessible to employees through their employee assistance program or HR. These stress-reducing services have been proven to:
1. Help employees achieve optimum productivity;
2. Increase efficiency and reduce absenteeism;
3. Upgrade benefit packages for attracting new employees, while complementing compensation packages;
4. Provide fresh, affordable ways to enhance employee loyalty.
By offering a menu of services valuable to employees, concierges services can alleviate personal stressors that make working 40+ hours a week physically and mentally exhausting.
Remember: employees like not having to use PTO (personal time off) that can be applied towards their vacation.
If this article resonates with you, Balance InStyle is located in Ottawa and we would love to chat about ways we can help your team be more productive!
Keep an eye out for us, this month our services will also be available for purchase at Costco locations in Ottawa. Looking forward to giving you back the one thing we all lack … TIME!
August 10, 2017
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