 Hi, so my first slide was going to be all this but M fist did a really great job introducing me so I run a tech support team about 150 agents now and we have about 400,000 customers all around the world 24 seven support and this is going to be important because this is a bit of a context For the tips I'm going to give you later for a bit of personal context. I am Gen X I grew up in Europe. I'm single and I'm in a tech leadership position. This is all gonna kind of make sense later This presentation is about work-life balance, which I didn't even know was a thing until it became a problem for me So and that is not me But it could be because I kind of felt like that throughout the years trying to figure out my own work-life balance and the balance for my team Lightning talk 15 minutes gonna go fast. I'm gonna share some do's and don'ts and They are gonna be somewhat specific to my role and how my team functions, but I hope that you find some Useful examples here. So first, let's do the do's Figure out who you are and what are your core values digging into why you are who you are will also help This is basically where you come from your past environments your old managers This is something that you can build on or if you hate it because of the examples that you experienced before You can do a 180 and create your own foundation to move away from all that and of course Your life is gonna keep happening and it's gonna keep adding to This work-life balancing act basically So do understand the company culture where you work and understand how the roles are defined You as an individual as a manager do not exist in a vacuum. So you need to understand Where you work? Assess quickly if you do or do not belong to this environment Because ideally where you work should align with your personal values in my case after after a finished college I Knew that I needed to find something solid in long term because that's what my family role models did And that's what I knew how to do So I set out to do that and I failed the first option that I picked I left after six months because I realized that we just weren't a match However, my second one. I'm still there and this is my 20th year at the same company And I'm very fortunate that I've been working. Thank you That's a big deal like 20 years in a tech company is like huge And I know I'm not even the oldest tenured person in the company I work in a very supportive environment that takes care of its people and that makes a big difference So Understand that you need to leave room for change like maybe you figured it out You have a good balance, but your life and needs will change so That's the leave room part at the beginning when I started I was like work work work. I was fine. No break I don't need it work is fulfilling love it won't work all the time Later, I realized that work was okay but there were other options for me to fulfill my needs to Achieve whatever I wanted to achieve or to be happy So I was able to adjust a little bit and added more life to the balance For example, I love to travel and we have a good vacation allowance So my workplace basically encouraged and supported my wanderlust and I created sort of new balance But I wasn't done Because due to my nature and the nature of my work I Couldn't completely switch off. It's tech support 24-7 manager position and I felt like I was responsible for everything. I internalized the SLAs and It started affecting my personal relationships and then my relationship would work and I almost didn't realize it until it was too late I was feeling resentful and Responsible and alone and I felt like the my peers Didn't feel the same way and they didn't care So that's something that I needed to rethink and change my perspective on that and recognize my own limitations as a human being so try not to get yourself into a position where Anything makes or break makes or breaks on your availability So you need to train mentor Delegate communicate and most importantly you need to trust the people that you rely on because somebody else needs to take care of The work so you can have your life And of course work is just work Which is obvious for some people but not for others Bad decisions do have consequences But they can be also used as learning opportunities and in the grand scheme of things it probably won't matter as much But all this needs to come from above leadership needs to Model this behavior Now let's do a couple of do's on how to be the right kind of manager to help your team with their relationship with a work-life balance Because you as a manager you're in a position when you affect people's lives and you can accidentally impact them in a negative way And why you don't have to constantly stand in attention Be aware of your influence and try not to best try best not to model the wrong behavior so remember what I mentioned about Finding the right environment for your values if you hire or manage other people help them do the same They need to also understand the company they are entering or working in and the expectations of their role And that means that some people will not align with what the expectations are and that's fully okay because there are places for everybody In other you know other environments like remember how I Left the workplace after six months because I was like this is not for me, but then my second workplace I'm there for 20 years. So it's possible to find the right places Get to know your team I feel like this is the most important thing that you can do as a manager You need to find out who they are What motivates them? What are their baselines and what are their boundaries? Talk to them, you know, you can do one-on-ones. You can do team-building events All those things are familiar for managers Knowing these baselines and boundaries will help you recognize when they go outside that baseline and that's when you start asking questions Because while we know that not everybody needs to be a top performer Some people are so when they start acting like not like that Then you need to figure out what's going on and you need to find a way to offer assistance and bring them back up So it's a personal note here. I used to be a really really bad manager I know one person here in the audience who remembers that and one of the best things that I did is to Get to know my people get to know who they are. What are their values and what is Their relationship with work life balance and stop applying my own template on everybody Another way to to get to know your people, especially if you work with different cultures Like we do we have seven different countries and our teams now is to to try and and understand the different cultures that make up your team because all of them will have a little bit of different approach to work and you know, just stay curious and Work with HR if you have a team and they can help with the basics or do social events and and talk to them and figure out who they are So now that you figured out the boundaries Make sure that you respect them yours as well And if ever there is a need to go outside those boundaries It can be okay, but you need to communicate you need to acknowledge and you need to appreciate When you cross those things don't just like barge in there And then there might be people who don't know how to set those boundaries on your team or don't know how to say no and Maybe they don't think they can say no because you're the boss or they just really really love to be over engaged like I used to be when I started and it's your job as a manager to identify those people at risk or those situations at risk and help them set those boundaries before they burn out and You know, there might be other people on your peer level Who do the same because it's really tempting to go to people for help who never say no so talk to your peers as well and You need to start and model Availability expectations try not to message people outside their shift I know it's tempting and there is all these things that you can use to talk to people But there are tools that you can use to help like there is you can schedule slacks you can schedule emails Because even if you tell people when you send a message at 10 p.m. That you don't need any immediate answer They're like, oh shoot the boss is working at 10 p.m. So maybe I should be working at 10 p.m so be mindful of mindful of your impact and try to not model this very questionable behavior Time away from work is also important to maintain the healthy work-life balance And sometimes you as a manager struggle with the fact that there are not enough people on your team But that should not be the main or the only reason to deny pay time off So find whatever works find ways that work for your business and your team to allow your people to be Away from work when they need to be For example, my team shots off certain channels during holidays and we communicate to the customers That we won't be available doing live chat for example during Christmas So we have our team can spend time with their families instead. So stay empathetic Couple of don'ts Do not assume that People have the same relationship with work-life balance Even if they have the same job as you or even if they used to have the same relationship as you Because people grow and change at a different rate and they deal with life at a different pace Like if you remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs the pyramid We move up and down those steps and everybody deals with things differently Some people sometimes people need to step away from work Sometimes they need to really step into work to deal with whatever is happening just like you and so keep an eye out and Going back to get to know your team the more you know about your team the better you know your people The better you will be able to help them in these shifts Do not consider yours as the de facto work ethic or strong work ethic because work ethic is basically just a set of personal values related to work You're not the de facto person Which is what I thought when I started as a manager and I was like I wouldn't ask anything from them that I wouldn't do myself So what's their problem? But that's not good. That's a fallacy because all people are different people So remember that And here's a quick reminder to be self-aware and try and model the right behavior for your team but of course you're a human being so you will make mistakes and You know reach out for help to those that you trust and keep going So you did the work you figured out your work life balance You are modeling consciously the right behavior. Well done. Everything's okay. We're done here. Not so fast This is one of my favorite quotes here Life is not static. So never assume that the work that you're doing towards work life balance is ever fully done because stuff happens and Yeah, we all kind of remember what this did to our work life balance So let's try this again Give yourselves a break things got a little more complicated on the tightrope and when COVID hit we gave up the offices and went fully remote and During the beginning I felt like I had to almost start from scratch trying to figure out my balance Took me about six months really to adapt and adjust and move on So here are some basic tips that I learned I'm in a very privileged position. I have a separate room for home office good for me That's not the standard, but even if you don't Some sort of physical separation will help If you can do it at home great if you can go co-working spaces even better There is another way that I solved my problem like I said, I'd like traveling So I picked other cities to work from Mixing travel with work, but I know that's not somebody not every now Not everybody can do this or want to do this, but it's you know, it helped me you just need to find what works for you Mental and emotional separation is also very important. You need to find activities that demarcates Life from work, even if you can fully physically separate With no commute or you know having to dress up for the office. I would just roll out of beds and I would work until dark and That was not good, especially when I forgot to eat all day I needed to set some time for me in the morning and set alarms in the evening to stop working and This is how you can help your team During these trying times you need to remain curious supportive and accepting and take their consider take their circumstances into consideration when communicating about remote expectations and Even if you're struggling you still need to pay attention to your team because you're responsible But you need to communicate you need to make them understand what the new requirements are and You need to set and manage those expectations Based on the the new reality. I guess do not micromanage Just pay attention And remember you work with people so try and foster some sort of like Community environment with remote events if possible Great, you did it again. So good job Well, you will have to do it again and again because circumstances will keep changing and change is never easy so These are something to remember when you go into the next changes pay attention to your team Do not assume their circumstances communicate the expectations and keep everybody a break yourself as well and quickly we're bringing in some takeaways of of What I find the most important to Try and figure out your own work-life balance and to to help your team do the same and model the right behavior And I think I am out of time So here's a quick Thank you for listening to this and if you have any questions those are all the availabilities and I'm happy to expand on all the ways that I did it wrong at the beginning and the things that I learned To you know to be the right kind of manager and leader for my team. So thank you