Our Work-Life Balance at DMS

Our employees are the core of our business. The heartbeat that keeps it going every day. Without them the business simply would not exist.  

We believe in ensuring that all employees have a work-life balance.  

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance reduces stress for employees and prevents burnout. It is important that everyone gets a healthy balance between personal and work, including Managers and Directors! We regularly forget about ourselves!  

Based on working 40 hours a week over a work lifetime of 49 years and a commuting time of 2 hours 5 days a week, excluding sleep time – an employee spends on average 47% of their wake time at their place of work / commuting to their place of work.  

If you think about it, that is a large percentage that an employee commits to a business over their lifetime! Whilst they are contracted and paid (which in my opinion is an old-fashioned way of thinking), it doesn’t mean employees shouldn’t be valued for their time or commitment to a business.

Even prior to the pandemic, DMS Navigator had started introducing a hybrid policy that allows an employee to work from home one day week as we saw the value of having a work-life balance and the key importance that this holds to an employee. And post pandemic, this is now two days a week. One being a Monday and the other being a Friday.

This frees up, going on the average for our employees at DMS Navigator, 4 hours of commuting time a week and 2 hours of lunch breaks where they can do things at home. That generates 6 hours of additional personal time a week. Sure, they get an hour’s lunch during the lunch break at the office as well, but they are very much bound to the office. It isn’t quite the same!

The working from home days being placed on a Monday and Friday is strategically placed. On a Monday, it gives an employee time to wake up and get ready to start the week without the Monday morning stress of hitting rush hour traffic. It sets them up for a positive start to the week. And let’s face it, most of us “don’t like Mondays”.  

The Friday allows an employee to start their weekend early, make plans more easily with loved ones and friends. Or simply start their winddown for the weekend with no requirement to travel home! Close their laptop and off they go!  

It also means our employees go from averaging at 42% of their work lifetime to 46%. Which whilst it seems small on screen it does make a big difference!  

One of the things that I love about working from home on a Friday is that I can prep my dinner (I am southern, tea if you’re Yorkshire!) on my lunch break then as soon as I finish work, I can put on my hiking boots and go for a nice long walk in the countryside with my much-loved companion! This is great in the winter months as I can do this before it gets too dark!  

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If you work from home on a Friday, what do you love about it?!  

Maintaining and assisting employees in getting a good work-life balance is good for their mental health and wellbeing, as well as being a positive to the productivity in your workplace. Happy employees equal consistently good productivity!

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