Augusta Good, MS, ACC’s Post

How to positively shift a work culture

So important to have a leader that believes in work-life balance.

I love this for so many reasons! As leaders, we are all working to find work-life balance; or, should we say work- life integration? Communication of “when I catch up” is key. Some of my peers are up and at work at 6:30 (not me) and others prefer to work late or catch up on emails after dinner or maybe the weekend. (Yes, me) No one is right or wrong. It’s your balance. As long as you are taking care of clients during core hours, your “doing and then some” hours should be up to you! Just let people know that your “doing and then some” hours are “yours” and they don’t need to be “theirs” in terms of response to you! #doyou #yourbalance #communication

This is leadership.

Recently, during training with a new hire, I was asked if setting up email access on their phone for off-hours was necessary.  My response was a firm "absolutely not."  Home time should remain just that—time for oneself, free from work obligations.Having witnessed firsthand the toll of neglecting work-life balance in previous roles, I'm committed to fostering a healthier approach as a leader.  I firmly believe that a balanced life outside of work directly impacts performance within it. As I've returned to a leadership position, I've made a personal vow to uphold this principle.  I want my team to thrive professionally, but not at the expense of their well-being.  Weekends are for rejuvenation, self-care, and quality time with loved ones, ensuring a refreshed and focused return to work. Join me in prioritizing work-life balance and empowering teams to excel in both their professional and personal lives.  Together, we can redefine success in the workplace. 💼🌱 #WorkLifeBalance #LeadershipGoals #EmployeeWellbeing

While some roles require additional time commitments, setting professional work/life discipline starts with yourself. You do not owe an apology for choosing not to use your phone during dinner. You do not need to get rid of the pesky red notifications. You do not need to explain why you ignored their call while you were praying over your kids during school drop-off. You do need to be professional. You do need to be responsive. You do need to contribute to the team. You do need to put extra effort in sometimes to get the job done. The bottom line is, to respect each other, fulfill your responsibilities with commitment and positivity, and support one another when putting in the extra work at work AND home.

In order to reduce the #pressure on your #employees to respond to #work #emails that come from "important" people within the #organization outside of their working, I recommend you to implement a similar message at the end of your emails. Let's take care of our colleagues' wellbeing with a simple and free gesture instead of creating a working environment that leads to fear and #burnout. ☀️ You've got this! 🙏🏻 #notoburnout #employeeswellbeing #nostress #leadership #leadeshiptip

I really like this email trailer! One of the things I learned to be careful of as a manager is working outside normal business hours. The thought was that if I'm working at 7pm or on a Saturday and my team sees me online, I could unintentionally signal to them that they need to work after-hours and on weekends, too. It leads to a strange restriction sometimes where I run an errand during the day or have a long lunch at home with my family and yet I have to stop at 5pm to be a good example. This adds to my stress! To help me get things done without putting undue pressure on my team, I use a couple of handy software features. First, I leverage a feature in Outlook to schedule the sending of emails when I compose them after-hours. I also manually set my Teams status to "Away" after-hours. Having a message footer like the one below on my communications and sharing it with my team explicitly seems like a thoughtful way to round out how I manage my work/life balance.

This email signature addition is simple, easy to execute, and a noteworthy representation of truly leading by example. 🙌 Adore it, and would love to see more leaders utilize messages and leadership philosophies of this nature- it’s a game changer. ♥️ #trueleadership #leadbyexample #worklifebalance #leadershipcoach #careercoach