Work Life Balance for Employee Wellness and Performance

The impact of ongoing relationship breakdowns on an employee’s well-being and productivity is often underestimated.

“I’m the type of person that if my relationship is good and I feel good about that I become more powerful at work, at what I do and in my life. When I met ‘Jody’ and there was flow, I felt great about myself. Work was easy. I could engage myself more at work and think about the goals I wanted to reach. I just felt empowered. I felt like my life was together in the sense that my relationship was in order. Things felt great. We had flow. I had flow in the rest of my life.

“Yet when there is conflict in the relationship I go to work and all I can think about is making things right with her. I don’t think about the projects I have to get to. I can’t help but put them on the backburner. I just want things to be right [with her] because when I have that I feel like I can do anything.” – A comment from a federal civil servant during the ‘Between Men and Women’ Couples Wellness Weekend.

“As a senior sales rep I’ve taken lots of courses and seminars. On a scale from 1 to 10 many rate about 3 or 4 and a few reach 6 or 7. This one is definitely a 12 or 14.”
– Mike Muhr, Sales Rep (Francis, Saskatchewan)

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THE ISSI PREMISE
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Inner Sync Systems Inc.’s (ISSI) approach to work life balance and employee assistance is based on 4 key premises:

I) The “co-worldly” employee, who values their life outside the office as much if not more than their life in the workplace, is an entrenched feature of corporate culture in the 21st century.

As Generations X and Y assume prominence in the workplace demands employees make of their employers are shifting. When it comes to training and support programs Generation Y in particular isn’t interested in just doing a better job. They want to live a better life. They expect employers to support them in both pursuits. That’s the nature of the co-worldly employee that has become an entrenched feature of corporate culture in the 21^st century.

According to the Families and Work Institute’s survey of senior and pipeline managers at six major multinational companies, “Having a supportive work environment” was the most highly-valued quality of an employer. “Having a good fit between life on and off the job” was the 3rd and 4th highest workplace value for women and men respectively.

II) Out-of-office personal relationships dramatically affect an employee’s physical and emotional well-being as well as their on-the-job effectiveness and productivity.

Recent studies have shown:

1. Men who divorce are 3 times more likely to become depressed than those who remain in relationship. Women who get divorced are 2.5 more likely to experience depression than those who remain married. -Statistics Canada, 2007

2. Difficulties in relationship and marriage are one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. When under stress men are more likely to resort to drinking as a coping mechanism while women are more likely to become depressed.
   -Yale University School of Medicine, 2008

   
   

3. Couples in marriages of poorer quality have lower immune functioning than people in more satisfying marriages. This marital stress spills over into job functioning.
   -Waite & Gallagher, 2000

   
   

4. Stress associated with poor marriages increases the likelihood of a heart attack or other heart trouble in both male and female subjects by as much as 34 per cent.
   -University College in London, 2007 (The study involved a wide cross-section of British civil servants over a 12-year period.)

   
   

5. When couples argue physical wounds heal at just 60 per cent the rate of wounds in couples that exhibited lower-hostility behaviour.
   -Ohio State University (A study measuring the healing rate of blister wounds inflicted on one member of a couple.)

III) The health of your employees’ personal relationships are your business. Failing personal relationships affect your company in the form of:

1. Unnecessary non-productive expenditures: For an average employee making $20/hr, the projected cost to your company of that employee divorcing is over $8,000.
   -Marriage CoMission, 2006

   
   

2. Sustained long-term productivity loss: Divorce can disrupt the productivity of an individual worker for as long as three years.
   -Lavy, 2002

   
   

3. Extended absenteeism: In the year following divorce, employees lost an average of over 168 hours of work time, equivalent to being fully absent four weeks in one calendar year.
   -Mueller, 2005

   
   

4. Spiraling health care costs: The increased levels of stress, anxiety, and depression resulting from failing relationships lead to lower levels of physical health and increased risk for substance abuse problems. These health issues cost companies in higher insurance premiums and healthcare expenditures.
   -Gallagher, 2002

   
   

5. More frequent employee turnover: Companies that support families through corporate policy are seen as more desirable to work for. In fact, a survey of MBA graduates noted that 70% rated work-family balance as more important to them than salary.
   -Chincilla & Torres, 2006

   
   

6. Entrenched employee dis-engagement: When dual-income couples are happily married, they have a greater level of commitment to their employers.
   -Curtis, 2006

   
   

7. Eroded return on benefit package expenditures: It costs 150% of a blue-collar worker’s total benefit package to replace him or her, and 250% of managerial and sales professional benefit packages. With that in mind, it makes a great deal of sense to reduce turnover and invest in employee relationship health.
   -Tangri, 2003

IV) Common methods of supporting staff who are experiencing marital and relationship problems include retaining relationship counselors and/or psychologists. Such support, however, is often ineffective or under-utilized because employees are:

1. concerned that their privacy won’t be respected;
2. reluctant to dredge up the past because this leaves them feeling “broken”;
3. cautious about asking for help. Individuals, especially men, feel that requesting assistance is a sign of weakness or that they will be quickly passed over when it comes time for a promotion.
   -Marriage CoMission, 2006

As an corporate wellness supervisor or Human Resource professional who is responsible for implementing employee assistance programs (EAP), retaining relationship counselors or psychological services is expensive. Treatment can last for weeks or months; and since counseling options can be under-utilized, your return on EAP dollars spent is compromised. You also need to walk the fine line of supporting your staff while not interfering in their right to privacy.

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OUR VISION
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At Inner Sync Systems Inc. we are committed to peoples’ whole-life well-being and to the well-being of the institutions in which men and women spend so much of their time and effort.

We know 2 things:

1. The health of our intimate relationships directly impacts our effectiveness in other areas of life including our professional lives; and
2. People spend more of their waking hours today at the office than they do with the people they love.

As a result, when life is suffering at home, life is hard at work too…and it’s at work that many people strive to live out their purpose, their potential and their contribution.

Our intention is:

1. To enable individuals and couples to achieve and maintain healthy personal relationships that contribute to their overall well-being and quality of life and to that of their family.
2. To empower our business clients to support their staff in this goal so employees live more effective lives in and out of the office.
3. To support our clients’ business goals of achieving a productive, satisfying and profitable business environment.

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THE STRATEGY
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“We got more value from ‘Between Men and Women’ than we did from the thousands of dollars we spent on marriage counseling.” – Sales Representative and “Between Men and Women” client

The “Between Men and Women”© Couples Wellness Weekend is a relationship support program with a difference.

The “Between Men and Women” Couples Wellness Weekend is a 2-day intensive exploration of who men and women are naturally.

“Between Men and Women” is about understanding the differences between the genders, differences which are often misunderstood or unknown. It’s about learning how men and women in relationship work best together. It combines self-awareness with awareness of the partner to create a powerful partnership. In short, “Between Men and Women” reveals the genders as the perfect complement to one another.

By interpreting the invisible language always going on between men and women, gender-in-relationship experts Donna Tosky and Jason Krausert help reduce much of the angst, frustration and stress that undermine personal well-being and effectiveness in life, love and career.

During “Between Men and Women” participants discover and explore:

1. Up to 32 traits common to all men
2. As many as 34 characteristics of women
3. The all-important “Desire – Production Cycle”
4. A woman’s hierarchy of wants
5. The simplicity of what a man wants
6. How to positively motivate a man
7. How women can unknowingly dis-empower men

…and more.

“Between Men and Women” is an employee assistance program that meets the need of both staff and employers.

For staff, the program is:

1. Non-threatening: Participants are not required to share, and they are not put on the spot. In other words, active participation is voluntary.
2. Descriptive, not prescriptive: “Between Men and Women” is not counseling or psychotherapy. We do not require participants to dredge up the past. They do not need to be fixed. There are just some things they need to know.
3. Fun: We laugh a lot during the weekend, which is good because humans can be funny creatures at times.
4. Immediately beneficial: The material participants learn is put to use immediately, during the weekend itself.
5. Relevant to their lives: We recommend your staff attend “Between Men and Women” with their partner / spouse if possible (partners attend at no extra cost) to ensure they are on the same page after the workshop. The material is based on real-life observations of real people and is about who men and women are naturally. As a result, all participants can directly relate to the content.

For their part, employers want to offer programs that are:

1. Reliable: The material within “Between Men and Women” is based on several years of research observing real-life interactions between real people, rather than “constructed” laboratory studies.
2. Cost-effective: As mentioned earlier, counseling and psychotherapy can be expensive and under-utilized. At Inner Sync Systems Inc., we do not charge you a retainer for this program. We only charge you for staff who register for “Between Men and Women” – a sort of “pay-as-you-go”, if you will.  To maximize the benefits of the program, we recommend that your employees attend “Between Men and Women” with their spouses / partners when possible. Spouses and partners, however, attend at no extra cost.
3. Easily managed: “Between Men and Women” can be promoted to your staff through existing means or via tools (i.e., newsletters, emails, etc.) developed by Inner Sync Systems. The registration process can be handled by us or your company, whichever you prefer. Flexible payment processes include, but are not limited to, your reimbursing staff after they complete the course; paying ISSI directly as each employee is approved to attend the program; or being billed at the end of each workshop cycle for the total number of registrations from your company during that cycle.
4. Shown to produce long-term results: Participants who completed “Between Men and Women” 3 years ago are still referring family and friends to the program.
5. Transferable: Since the essence of who men and women are is the same both inside and outside the office, the tools participants will learn for use in their personal relationships will also produce more effective professional interactions with colleagues and clients. This skills transference is important. First, it magnifies the value the workshop offers to EAP supervisors. Second, strong personal relationship skills impact professional performance. According to a Marriage CoMission compilation of research released in 2006,
   

   “Despite equally high levels of work stress, the study group with greater relationship skills from their couple and family relationships were found to be the most productive.”

The “Between Men and Women” Couples Wellness Weekend will be of interest to:

1. Any Wellness / EAP coordinators who are responsible for the well-being of their company’s staff
2. Human resources managers charged with providing personal and professional development programs for employees
3. Wellness / human resource managers in industries known for being high-stress which in turn puts pressure on personal relationships and marriages (e.g., hospitals, law firms, law enforcement, paramedics, the military).
4. Wellness / human resource managers in high-risk industries in which distractions, including those caused by problems at home, can increase the likelihood of being injured on the job (e.g., construction, oil field operations, emergency services [police officers / paramedics / firemen], the military, highway maintenance, ).

Contact Us:

Contact Inner Sync Systems for a free consultation or to request a quote.

Call Jason Krausert at:
Phone: (403) 455-9351
Email: contact@innersyncsystems.com