Good boundaries make good colleagues

Designing a workplace that supports healthy workers, productivity, and a business that moves in the right direction takes ongoing effort. As more businesses become truly purpose-driven, their devotion to creating a motivated and committed workforce is paying off: people are speaking, and leaders are listening. One area where employees may need support, guidance, and encouragement? Developing healthy workplace boundaries for employees both supports their well-being and engages their interest and belief in organizational purpose.

Robert Frost said it best: good fences make good neighbors. But boundaries are necessary in more than just neighborhoods. In the workplace, the ability to set, understand, and respect healthy boundaries should be an area of focus for all organizations. Many employees struggle with boundary-setting in their everyday lives, and setting healthy boundaries between work and life can be just as challenging. While there are many types of boundaries, some are more relevant to work dynamics. Common work boundaries center on several areas:

• Emotional boundaries. Emotional (or intellectual) boundaries help prioritize feelings, thoughts, and ideas in a way that protects and maintains one’s sense of self and confidence. These boundaries create a healthy separation between personal and professional life.

• Priorities/workload boundaries. This type of boundary helps employees perform their best work by addressing their workload volumes and prioritization of work, which may mean requesting extensions or creating additional accommodations when workload changes arise.

• Time boundaries. This type of boundary can be especially challenging. Employees must be supported in protecting their time away from work, as well as raising the red flag if their work schedules cannot accommodate the volume of special projects with other work responsibilities.

• Communication boundaries. Communication boundaries are important for everyone. No one enjoys getting bombarded by calls or messages when they are not at work, but it’s equally important to respect communication boundaries within the work environment — whether that means emailing instead of calling or texting ahead to ask for a quick meeting before dropping it on someone’s calendar.

Boundaries and balance

While work-life balance is a well-known term, many successful organizations are now leaning into a newer concept — work-life integration. Where work-life balance encourages working during designated hours and then separating mentally to focus on personal time, work-life integration refers to blending work responsibilities with personal responsibilities. This concept offers a more fluid approach to the reality of post-pandemic work — one that empowers employees by offering the flexibility they require, while also making it okay for them to show up and be accepted as their full selves when they're at work. Managers and staff agree on the guideposts and timelines of work, and people are free to work in the ways they work best. All aspects of life— career, work, home, family, community, and personal well-being, are seen as integral parts of a person and can coexist in any space, rather than the old binary of work versus home.

Boundaries are crucial to both employee and company health. Employees who are unable to set or maintain healthy boundaries are more likely to experience stress, fatigue, and burnout, all of which contribute to lower productivity and higher rates of disengagement and turnover.

Successful business leaders understand that guided autonomy allows organizations to create respectful space for employees while also providing the structure, goals, and support necessary to help them prioritize their work in positive ways. By developing a strategy that encourages company-wide commitment to purpose, leadership can help shape and reinforce good boundary-setting as a step toward fulfilling that purpose.

On purpose

Employees are your company’s most vital asset, especially in a market rife with talent acquisition challenges. Healthy work-life integration means employees can meet the demands of their work life without sacrificing aspects of their personal life. It’s important for companies and employers to provide good role models by encouraging leaders to create and set healthy work boundaries for themselves and their teams. To cultivate healthy boundaries and work-life balance, consider these processes and policies:

• Encourage use of paid time off (PTO). Everyone needs time away from work to decompress and regroup. Examine leave policies to ensure workers are provided ample PTO and that employee “away” time is respected by supervisors and other employees.

• Limit contact outside of work. Employees should be contacted outside of their regular work schedule only in case of emergency or in other extremely special circumstances.

• Utilize flexible work options. Employees value autonomy and providing flexibility in scheduling allows them to prioritize their time most effectively. Flexible work options may include virtual work, flex time, hybrid scheduling, or other approaches that best fit a situation.

When boundaries are respected as a vital component of the business culture, committing to organizational purpose becomes part of the organizational dynamic. For more information on establishing a fair and equitable work-life integration approach, contact Fitch Consulting.