Maintaining the Balance
A move to a management position shouldn’t necessarily mean deterioration in your home and family life.
Sure, more is expected of you and you will want to give more, but not to the point where you are stressed out and living 24 hours a day at your desk.
A good move is to investigate the possibility of doing some work from home.
Many managers take this route if they have work which can be done away from the office.
Providing you have a relatively quiet, stress-free work zone in your home then make use of it.
In this day and age there should be no problems with network or internet connections, conference calls, video calls or any of the things which previously had managers chained to their work stations.
Working in your home office may not be the same as sitting in your favourite arm chair watching TV with your family, but it is a whole lot better than sitting in your office at 8 o’clock at night wondering at what time you will get home.
If you have a family, they will also appreciate having you around more, just remember to take some time out now and then to eat as a family and pass some time with them.
I am going to cover delegation in another article, so the next point I want to make is about your attitude towards working extra long hours.
No-one can oblige you to do this, and you certainly shouldn’t feel the need to pay back the bosses who promoted you by doing it, or do it out of fear of losing the job.
You were promoted to a management position for your skills, your experience and your overall attitude.
None of these positive aspects will shine through if you work too many hours.
I firmly believe that many people do a huge amount of hours purely for the sake of appearances.
I personally find that after a certain amount of time working the brain switches off. I can find myself staring at the screen wondering what I have been doing for the last half an hour.
This is the point to switch off the machine and walk away.
You are not being productive anymore and the best thing you can do is go home and enjoy your family life. You will probably find that tomorrow morning you get done in fifteen or twenty minutes what was taking you hours at the end of a long day.
The new, senior position you occupy should give you the possibility to take more decisions regarding how you use you time and should give you the chance to improve your work / home life balance, instead of ruining it.
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About the Author
Grant has worked in the training and development environment for the past 6 years delivering a range of training initiatives within the areas of customer service, retail management, team development, sales training and call centre training throughout New Zealand and Australia.http://www.zealmarkgroup.co.nz
Posted in Management skills