#AskDesiree: How can I encourage work-life balance for my ecommerce team?

Hello there, cranberry panda fans! I’m back for another installment of ‘#AskDesiree’, answering your ecommerce career dilemmas!

The question I’ve picked for today is extremely relevant for many people right now. Mental health in the workplace is a key topic, and a perfect work-life balance makes the difference between a happy team and a demotivated team.

The cranberry panda 2019 ecommerce salary survey & insights report features many insights on this topic. In fact, I would say it was probably the biggest talking point of the report this year. With that in mind, I’m going to share with you what actual ecommerce professionals think of their work-life balance in the industry today. If you’re an ecommerce leader in your business, these insights are invaluable and will help you create a wonderful atmosphere for your ecommerce team.

Are ecommerce professionals happy with their work-life balance?

Before we look at how you can help your ecommerce team achieve a better work-life balance, let’s look at what the respondents thought overall. Are they happy with their work-life balance?

As we can see, 62% of respondents to our ecommerce salary survey questionnaire said they were happy with their work-life balance. It’s important to note that last year, this figure was on 68%. There has also been a small 2% increase in those who are unhappy…so what has changed?

Well, 36% of respondents feel management can do more to encourage a better work-life balance. While not the majority, it’s still something we need to ackowledge. There will be plenty more content on work-life balance within the industry, but now I will go through ways managers can help encourage a good balance between work and play!

How can ecommerce leaders encourage employee’s work-life balance?

If you want your team to have a better work-life balance, I’ve listed a few things you can think about when making your plan of action!

Talk to the team

The first thing you should do is talk to each team member individually. Ask them how they are right now and how they feel about their work-life balance. It will paint a great picture of who maybe needs more guidance from you and those who have managed to strike the balance.

Encourage breaks

In the ecommerce industry, there are always going to be busy periods – one minute you’re working away and the next, you realise lunch time has long since passed.  It can be easily done, but it’s a habit that needs to be broken. As a manager, you should try and counter this in every employee, even those who say they’re happy to continue without a break.

Sure, it’s great having eager employees but you need to consider their well being before their results. If you see someone overworking themselves, or skipping some much-needed lunch, then approach them. Allow employees a morning tea or coffee break too, just so the day is broken up and they don’t go home bringing their work exhaustion with them!

Flexible working – do you offer this?

Flexible working has become quite a big topic in the working world in the last few years – it’s not just ecommerce professionals looking for it! We are in an industry where much of what we do is online, so working from home or having hours more suited to the employee shouldn’t affect the quality of work. If it is down to a trust issue, then this is a culture problem that the company needs to address!

Ultimately, people won’t feel like working adults if they don’t have some control over their time. If someone wants to spend every Wednesday evening at a Yoga class, then let them start earlier that day so they can make it on time. This is a perfect example of what work-life balance means – working hard so that you can do the things you want to in life. Careers should not get in the way of hobbies and personal things.

Workload review

Do you often review the workload for the ecommerce team and the departments within it? Are you sure that they have the right capacity and resources to do it on time and do it well? Being time poor means the team may feel overtime is a necessity, while being unsure of how well the work is going means they will take that worry home.

The best way to approach the workload is to educate your team on different ways to tackle it. Ask them what is urgent and what can wait – letting them know they can focus on the urgent tasks only will take the pressure off. Have a training session on time management too and encourage them to prioritise themselves when it comes to big projects. They don’t have to burn themselves out to achieve the best results.

How will you approach work-life balance in your ecommerce team?

I hope these tips will help you and your ecommerce team achieve the perfect work-life balance! There are plenty of ways you can approach this, so of course do more research to ensure you approach this in the best way possible.

Do you have any career dilemmas you need answered? Send your questions to me, whether it’s about your career or a particular hiring dilemma. You can reach me at desiree@cranberrypanda.co.uk! Look forward to your questions…