GrokTalk Blog

 “When we take care of ourselves, we are only going to be better at everything,” proclaimed Arianna Huffington at a Business Chicks event in Sydney. Huffington is promoting her new book “Thrive” and her new lifestyle of doing less, not more. “Drop the things that no longer serve you,” she says.

After collapsing in her office due to sheer exhaustion in 2007, she committed to getting a full eight hours of sleep a night and abandoning a life of chronic busyness and unfinished aspirations, like wanting to be good skier. “I’m never going to invest the time and energy to become a good skier so it was liberating to complete that project by dropping it.”

For many Americans, Labor Day’s most popular meaning is “the last hurrah of Summer,” but its national significance is much bigger than that. According to Wikipedia, Labor Day was established as an official holiday in 1887 as a celebration of the American labor movement. It is an annual tribute to the contributions all workers make to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of their country. Here’s how we think you should celebrate: 

First, relax and have fun! You work hard so you certainly deserve to celebrate this weekend! Grokker’s Guide to Labor Day Weekend will help you maximize your fun and relaxation with:

We all have those days where we can’t get away at lunchtime for even a walk or maybe your boss values “face time” too much to ever let that happen.  Here are 4 tips I’ve found to help you fit in some exercise while stuck in the office.

Toning from your office chair. Verily magazine shows us that it’s possible to tone your tummy and glutes right from your office chair. With exercises called the “desk chair non-wall-sit” and the “I-need-to-adjust-my-monitor-air-squat” your colleagues may not even notice! There are even dozens of active desk chairs which will engage your core while you sit.

I’ve worked at a lot of companies, big, small, start-ups, agencies and Fortune 500s, and when it comes to workplace wellness, it’s not size that matters. Even though more than 85% of large employers offer a wellness program, less than one in four employees actually participates in it, according to a recent Gallup poll. This is a problem. Not only for companies’ bottom lines, but for the people who work there. Even when my big name employer offered an elaborate fitness facility, monthly wellness speakers, and subsidized massages, I always felt like I had to sneak out to take advantage of any of it.

Just read my previous post on increasing employee engagement through work-life balance to see how companies benefit from increasing engagement with wellness programs and you might wonder the same thing I do-- why are so few people using these programs? What can I do about it? How can I improve my workplace wellness? 

You spend a significant part of your life working so it’s critical to find a way to enjoy your work or make peace with the pieces you don’t before it breaks you. But leaving your job may not be the answer either.

In an earlier post I talked about how entrepreneurs need to make work life balance as high a priority as shipping their product. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that work life balance is just as important for the entire team as it is for its leader.

How does work life balance affect employee performance?

It is obvious that increasing a team’s wellness lowers health costs for the business and increases productivity because of fewer sick days. An even more impactful benefit can also come from increased employee engagement.

I had a good laugh when I saw the results of this UK study summarized in the Daily Mail that said to have “perfect” work/life balance one couldn’t spend more than 2.5 hours at your desk working each day.  Which, even if you had the most integrated life possible, would translate only to 17.5 hours/week!

I live and work here in the Bay Area, deep in Silicon Valley and some people here make the “humble brag” of how hard they work an actual sport. And while I pursue a more balanced, integrated life and Grokker values are around everyone maintaining effective work life balance, it still requires many more than 17 hours of work each week!