Welcome to the bringing the human Back To Human Resources,
podcast, the podcast, all about the delicate balance between
people and business. And quite literally reconnecting
the tube. My name is Tracy Ruben and I've
spent nearly my entire professional career in a jar,
join me as I share stories, opinions and words of advice
with you each week. Hi everyone.
Welcome back to bringing the human Back To Human Resources
podcast. This is your host Tracy Ruben.
I hope you all. Had a really nice start to the
holiday season and it's officially December 1st.
So, welcome to December. It's the last month of 2020.
So here goes nothing. I thought we could take time
this week to talk about maintaining a work-life balance.
I'm sure I'm not. The only one who has had
challenges. Challenges with this, especially
this year with everything going on with covid and if you're
working remotely, like I have been.
And I think it's really important because we're
approaching the holiday season, it doesn't necessarily feel the
same. You know, we have been locked
inside our houses for the better part of a year and although over
the summer at least in the US things were a little bit more
normal than they were at the start of the year.
We are proud. Probably approaching a second
lockdown. I mean it's the writing is
pretty much on the wall at this point and if there's anything
that I have noticed, it's that it's really hard to maintain a
work-life balance when working remotely some things that I have
done to set aside, time to create a difference between work
and personal life. Are things that I'll go through
during this podcast, but I pretty much have always had a
good work-life balance. Since I went through grad school
while working full-time, I've done extracurricular, things,
outside of work, I have hobbies, and so, to be able to do all of
those things, you have to have a work-life balance.
However, I graduated from grad school in May, and it was kind
of like a blessing in disguise that we had, you know, just
started our lockdown and in pretty much in March, I've been
working remotely since March and I was able to finish my
Capstone. Jacked for my last semester of
grad school, while working remotely.
And so it forced me to really put an end to the work day and
start my school day basically, which is what I had always done
throughout my few years of grad school because I did go
part-time in order to be able to work full time.
And I pretty much have been working remotely since I think,
March, 12, March 10th and it was a scary unknown.
Time, like, we were working every weekend because we needed
to figure out what are the states going to do?
What are the countries going to do?
Because I do oversee, the u.s. and Canada and there was so much
unknown. So, every day was a mystery,
which I mean, to be really honest, it was kind of exciting
to have such a new and unprecedented Challenge and to
know that every single person was kind of in this same space
and time. We're like no one knew what the
right thing to. Do one was no one knew what was
going to happen. And so we kind of had to figure
it out along the way and that to me was kind of exciting because
it was kind of like, writing a book and, you know, taking a
blank page and putting words on it.
However, once we started to realize the gravity of the
situation, you know, now it's like the end of March going into
April, which was all be a probably one of the deadliest
months not to get too heavy but one of the deadliest months, I
think for the u.s. and, you know, our Doors were closed and
everything was kind of just like a waiting game to see what would
happen when we reopen. So created a lot of work and a
lot of spillover into, you know, work and personal life kind of
blending together. So my point on this blessing in
disguise, is that there was nowhere to go, there was nothing
to do so to go from having a very healthy and active social
life to having nothing and being able to do nothing.
It was really a blessing. I was able to carve out Lot more
time for work, of course. And a lot more time for my
schoolwork, as well typically before the the pandemic.
And before the lockdown, I would get on the train from New
Jersey, to go into the City and it was like, I guess an hour
train ride and I would take that our to study or do work or read
whatever. I had to do for school and then
I get to work work from pretty much like nine.
Two six, nine two six thirty sometimes a little earlier.
Sometimes a little later and then I'd get on the train home
and that was my additional school time.
And so, it was very easy to maintain that work-life balance.
Once the lockdown started, I had to basically create that
commute. So that I knew I had time to do
my school work on top of all of the work.
And now all of the added work that I had, so it was kind of
easy to make that happen. However, once I Waited from grad
school in May and it was great. I mean I was like so happy to be
done even though I love school and I always have I filled that
commuting time with work. So instead of doing school work,
I was doing more work work and it was pretty much necessary in
May. That's when we kind of started
to open things back up, our stores were reopening we were
planning our process for recalling are furloughed
employees. And we We were like, okay well
maybe this is maybe this is it. This is a light at the end of
the tunnel for the pandemic. Right.
Well not exactly because obviously now it's December and
we still are in this state of unknown, Toronto has entered
their second lockdown. I think that the u.s. is
probably not far behind Canada. At least Toronto in this case.
And you know, in May and June July.
Those were some seriously heavy workload months because of all
of these again, Rented moments and time.
So I've created some tips and tricks that I actually, as of
December first, I'm going to follow because I've spent these
last, like, six months just working myself into the ground
because there's just not enough time and I think everyone
probably has their own story of how they've given up a lot of
their personal time to make space for work because there's
just not enough time. I'm for work these days and at
least in my career as an HR person.
I I've said this on multiple episodes at this point, there
are people human beings relying on us to make sure that we allow
them to return when it's safe for them to return to work.
That we close the stores for cleaning when it's necessary to
close the surfer cleaning. Like, there's so much riding on
individuals at this point that wasn't necessarily the case,
prior to the pandemic. I never got involved with
employees being out sick. And managing their time out and
making sure, you know, that we understand their their test
results and that it's safe for them to return that they're no
longer symptomatic and things like that.
I've never had to deal with that.
But this is a totally new Rome where we are literally tracking
every individuals, absence related to an illness, and it's
an incredible amount of work and my family and my fiance, they
often say like you need to take a break, you need to, you know,
take time off but And I did that like I took time off for this
Thanksgiving holiday, but I could not stop thinking about my
employees about work. I checked my email for the first
three days that I was off during the week.
So like just before Thanksgiving, I tried to
maintain my email checking for later at night, when I knew that
it was kind of like my own time and I could carve out like an
hour to two hours to just kind of dig into things that needed
my attention. So that was good and normally
when I take time off, I unplug, but during 2020 that just
doesn't exist or hasn't existed for me.
And so, for so many others, including my, my peers, and then
Thanksgiving and Black Friday, everyone at the corporate office
at least is off, but our field teams are not off.
Obviously Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the
year of if not the biggest shopping day of the year and Our
stores are open. So in the back of my mind it's
Thanksgiving dinner. And even though this
Thanksgiving is was super different than it normally is
and we weren't able to see family the way that we normally
do. It still sat on my mind that oh
man I need to check my email, I need to see what's going on
because there could be someone who tested positive.
There could be someone who had Direct contact and we need to
manage their absences. And I'm very fortunate to be
part of a team so that we all kind of bear this burden
together, But everyone wants to enjoy Thanksgiving.
And so at what point do you all just end up checking in?
So it was nice to have time off, but I realized that I can't just
rely on a few days off to create or remind myself of the beauty
of a work-life balance. And working remotely has so many
challenges and I think the biggest challenge is the
work/life balance. And I've actually had a lot of
Outreach from people across all the the social platforms that
I'm on that ask like how do we engage our staff?
How do we you know how do we keep people motivated?
I think the best way to keep people motivated at this point
is to make sure that they are unplugging at some point.
Whatever people, prioritize as their time to unplug.
They need to prioritize it and for myself and my colleagues who
are managing all of this covid related stuff for our team's, we
are working through the weekend. We are King later at night, I
have like 9:00 for me. I'm eastern time is 6:00 for my
West Coast team and it's even earlier for our team in Hawaii.
So, I think about all that, that's my soft story of a
work-life balance at this point. And it's not a complaint because
actually, when you love what you do, it's really hard to complain
about the things that you're spending your time on, however,
it's exhausting. And there's definitely burn out,
So starting December first, I am going to create for myself, a
very specific set of rules to ensure that I have a better
work-life balance. And I hope that you guys do this
with me and I'm going to post more on Instagram about this so
that we can remind ourselves and hold ourselves accountable to
these tips. So the first thing is to set a
routine and I feel like if you Google this and you look up how
to add maintain a work-life balance during Work from home
covid. Lala, you're going to find these
tips, but I'm going to break them down so that we can
actually execute them and action them and they're not just words
of advice, but they're actually actionable pieces of
information. So create a routine.
I talk to you just a bit earlier in this episode about how I had
a commute before working from home and I use that commute to
be productive if I were commuting.
Now, I would probably be reading for leisure because I love to
read but since I don't have that, I don't have that commute
anymore, I'm going to create a commute for myself.
So I've always been an early riser.
I typically wake up between 6:00 and 6:30 but since working
remotely, I have been so much more exhausted because of the
workload that I've been sleeping later.
And so later for me is around 7 a.m. sometimes I'm scrolling on
Tick-Tock, which is really Not so good.
Like I should probably stop the scroll but I scroll until like
7:30. And then I wake up and I'm
exhausted and some mornings I use it for for Peloton other
mornings. I just do nothing and that's
actually more exhausting to me. Like I now realize I need to use
that time that I would normally commute to actually do that.
So I'm going to start waking up again at 5 a.m.
I hope I don't regret making this commitment.
I'm like staring off into To space while saying this, okay,
I'm doing it. I'm going to wake up at 5:00
a.m. I'm going to work out because I
have a wedding to shed for which you don't have to, but I want to
maybe some mornings all podcast, you know.
Now while I'm working remotely, I kind of sign on between 8:00
and 8:30, but I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to sign on between 8:30 and 9:00 like I normally
would when I would be commuting to the office and so I'm going
to take back that half hour between 8:00 and 8:30.
And do something for myself outside of working out on the
podcast, whether it's reading, whether it's going for a walk.
Maybe it's literally just scrolling on Tick-Tock from 8:00
to 8:30, whatever it is. I'm going to do that and then I
will start my day at 8:30. So now I don't think it's
realistic to have an end-of-day commute where I'm ending work at
six and I'm, you know, doing something again for myself.
I don't know that, that's totally realistic.
However, what I'll do is Is commit to having an end time
between six and seven and I will make dinner.
Maybe I can even make dinner during the morning when I'm
doing something for myself. I don't know, we'll see how it
goes, but I'm creating a commute for myself.
So after work I'm going to then make sure I am continuing on
with my personal life so creating the end of day commute.
So I feel good about committing to that, I hope that you guys
are inspired by creating routine and that you also Create a
commute for yourself so that's the first thing.
So second, I'm going to bring back.
My hobbies podcasting has become one of my biggest Hobbies at
this point. I really really, really enjoy
it. And so I'm going to make sure I
do it more often and I used to read where like I could either
read multiple books at once or I would start a book finish it.
Start a book finish. It started with and it was like
back to back and I need to get back to that because there's
something so enjoyable for me about reading.
Doing. And I really kind of like give
myself such a mental break when I read because it's one of the
only things I find that actually stops my mind.
Like, I when I read, I don't think about other things.
I just think about the characters or what I'm reading
or the information. And I kind of miss that I miss
having that mental break. So I need to do that again.
And one of the hobbies that I'm hoping to create is actually a
Tick-Tock, I got it. A great recommendation, from a
friend, to start a tick, tock around this podcast.
And so I have to figure out what that looks like, but it actually
would probably be really fun for me because I actually one of the
things that I love about Tick-Tock is the professional
space. So, I've ended up on like
Dermatology Tick. Tock, I've ended on real estate
Tick-Tock. Like I've gotten on so many
sections of tick-tock like The Tick-Tock universe, and I'm sure
there's an HR Tick-Tock out there but I I could be
interesting, so I don't know. We'll see how it goes.
I might chicken out and not do it because I just, I don't know.
I'm not as much a millennial as I probably should be but getting
back to Hobbies. So we covered two points already
the third and this is something that I've actually always done
since the start of working remotely in March and that is
creating a workspace and a home space.
So I do have a desk and I have whole setup for my computer's
and my screens and everything. However One thing that I do
that, I highly recommend everyone is getting a lamp for
your office space or wherever you work.
If you work in a studio apartment, that's fine, get a
lamp. Get a blanket gets something
that symbolizes work and turn it off or put it away when work
ends. So, for me, I have a lamp at the
corner of my L-shaped desk and it's to my right and it's on
during the workday and I turn it off.
At the end of the work day. And so sometimes the lamp does
stay on until 10:00 at night, but when it turns off, that's
when work turns off. So I really recommend taking
that that idea and implementing it, it's helped me a lot.
And before I had the lamp, I would, you know, I would close
the computer. I would do something that
symbolized, okay, the work, the office is closed for business
like we're done. It is time for personal time and
It helps just to kind of compartmentalize where you are
in your day. And so, I think that's what the
commute will help with. If you do this, let me know what
your let's say, your office sign.
What's your office? Sign, my office sign is the
lamp. Maybe it's a matter of using a
different cup, or a mug, or you go from your couch to your bed,
or something like that. That's your office sign.
So when your office is open, your sign is X.
And when your office is closed, the sine is y.
So let Me know what your office sign is.
And then my last tip for this week is to know when you need to
take a break. And for me, I go and I go and I
go and I go and I go until I literally can't move.
Pretty much. That's just how I've been in my
entire life. I feel very fortunate to have a
really strong work ethic. I grew up not having any other
option. Like it was that you worked hard
and you played hard but as you especially We worked hard, and
if you worked hard, you got what you wanted and you would be
successful. Even if like, you know,
something didn't go right, or I wasn't good at something.
I had to work hard through it and it's taught me a lot of
really great life lessons. However, I didn't always know
when to take a break. The only time I knew when to
take a break was when I literally burnt out and could
not like physically do anymore, and I would have to like, veg
out on the couch for like 24 or 48 hours do Nothing.
And then I was reinvigorated but that's really not healthy.
It's not actually a sustainable approach, but it's really it's
not healthy. Like, you know, you burn out and
then what and for me like it takes a, it takes a lot for me
to get to that place of being stressed, and burnt out.
And I got there a couple weeks ago, right before my time off.
I got there, I hit a wall. I started bouncing around on my
stability. Ball, like around my dad.
Skin. I was clearly losing my mind and
thankfully, I had scheduled some time off, but actually, I
probably would not have taken that time off.
Had my fiance not been off. And so then what what would I
have done? I burned out two weeks ago, had
not gonna say mental breakdown, because I really didn't, but I
had a, I had a moment where I was like, everything was just
too much. And to the point where I
literally, like, in the middle of the day, I needed to move a
meeting so that I could actually have time to just breathe
because I was totally done. And okay, fine, took me what?
Eight months to get there, but like, we had like, we do, we all
had little mini breakdown staring the quarantine, but
that's like, really, it's not good.
So, what would I have done if I didn't have that time off?
At that point, I would have needed to say to my boss.
Hey, I'm going to need some some time off as this.
Okay? So, I'll say is that, if you
think that you can keep going and you don't need time off, you
actually should at least plan one day when you feel, you don't
need it because it might be the day that you need it.
Most and so knowing when you need to take a break before you
need a break is one of the best things that you can learn over
the course of your career because we all need a break if
we keep going and going and going, we're eventually going to
stop and so preventing That burnout is something that we all
can do individually, but that we also should be thinking of for
even our employees. So, when this episode launches,
it's the start of December, we have an opportunity to get ahead
of our New Year's resolutions to end this crazy year with
something for ourselves, something good, and positive,
and healthy. And so I encourage all of you to
schedule a break in the Sure, schedule time whether it's for
the holiday season. Even though this holiday season
is going to look a little different, I think everyone
should still take that time off the way they normally.
Would, I mean in retail, like we our teams and the stores can't
take off until January, if we had vacation time during our
busiest season, we would not have enough employees in the
stores. And that's just this is retail.
Like if you don't want to work holidays nights and weekends and
you should not be in retail. My thinking for our team's is
that in January, we need everyone to put in vacation
time. It came back after being
furloughed and locked down. And, you know, everyone had some
sort of physical emotional financial burden from covid.
And hopefully, most of us didn't lose or having a family member
impacted but many of us have. And so we're going to need to
have time to actually just sit down.
And relax with either ourselves, our loved ones, our spouses or
Partners whomever. And so, for our teams that are
not taking vacations, during this holiday season, they should
be taking that time off at the start of the year in 2021.
If you're a manager and you know, that your teams have not
taken time off, pretty much at all through 2020, which I don't
really know anyone that's taken any substantial vacation time.
And it's probably because we can't travel or travel is
restricted and so like why waste my PG H if I can't go anywhere
and I get that but if you're a manager or if you're an employee
who is like yeah hashtag relatable take time.
Staycation is just as nice and you can do things that are
local, you can do things that are just as fun and safe, but
that still give you that time off, that you deserve, and
probably really need with that said, I am really going to
commit to The things that I have committed to on this podcast and
it's going to start with that routine and I'm really looking
forward to it. I'm actually really excited to
go to sleep early and wake up at five in the morning and just
have time for myself. And yeah, I'm just really
looking forward to time for just myself because my work is
focused on everyone else. There's nothing more to my job
than to make sure that everybody else is taken care of.
And so who's taking care? Care of me.
Well I'm gonna have to do that too.
So this routine. This reinvigoration of my
hobbies and reminding myself that I can have a commute while
working remotely. I'm really excited for it so
I'll let you know how it goes on the next episode and and through
my socials. So I hope you go into this
December looking forward to 2021, I cannot wait for 2021,
it's the year I'm getting married which actually I'm going
to need to take some of those hours.
Before I start my work day to get back to planning the wedding
because I got all the big stuff done.
Like I we have the venue, we have the florist and we have the
band and all those things but like there are so many other
things, there's so much more that needs my attention.
I'm looking forward to taking time, back to, you know, invest
in myself and my relationship, and hopefully have a lot more
stability and work-life balance. It's all about work-life
balance. Since that's all it is.
Yeah. So I look forward to hearing all
of your thoughts and opinions on this episode.
I think I'm going to make like a little template that talks about
how we're going to use our new time and I'll post that on
Instagram and you guys should use it and share it and fill it
in. So on that note I wish you all
an incredible month of December. I will of course see you next
week and as always, please remember to rate review And
subscribe wherever your Listening to this podcast.
You can follow me on Instagram at HR.
Tracy, that's HRT. Raci.
You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, just search for my
name Tracy Ruben. Thank you so much, see you next