You already know that work-life balance is important to your employees. It reduces stress, prevents burnout and saves your company money with a healthier, happier and more productive staff.
Increasingly, employees expect their companies to help them create healthy lifestyles and nurture their lives outside of work, all while turning a profit. Each employee thinks differently about what acceptable work-life balance means.
The Case for Work-Life Balance
Gen Xers, born between 1961 and 1980, are more likely to use their PTO than their parents. They define work-life balance as a good vacation policy, generous maternity or paternity, and the option to telecommute. Millennials, born after 1980, desire work life balance that supports their personal lifestyle–whatever that happens to be.
The heart of work-life balance is flexibility, which increases job satisfaction and promotes the health of a workforce. The question is, how are companies supposed to provide career flex for their employees without encumbering their own bottom lines?
Today’s digital startups may hold the answer: On-demand.
The following companies offer on-demand childcare, on-demand healthcare and even on-demand breakfast. All services that help companies create a flexible culture, which Gen Xers and Millennials have come to expect.
1. Kiid: On-Demand Babysitting
We are Montreal’s first on-demand babysitting service, a big opportunity for any employer facing family-related absenteeism. Working mothers who have preschool age children are two to three times more likely to miss work due to a family responsibility.
This is hard for everyone. It’s very stressful when a parent feels they have to go against the grain at work to arrange care for their child; it’s also disorienting for employees when a team member is distracted with childcare.
That’s why Kiid partners with companies to provide on-demand babysitting packages, which relieve parents from scrambling when the inevitable happens, and the regular sitter doesn’t show, or a child gets sick and is sent home from school. Companies that offer on-demand babysitting (and encourage employees to use it) promote a healthy work-life balance, cut down on work absences, increase productivity, bring top talent to their doorstep–and keep it.
Kiid works like DoorDash, with a lot more oversight. Book a sitter instantly, all of whom have passed a background check, are qualified, referenced, CPR certified and have three years of childcare experience.
To learn more about Kiid and on demand babysitting, visit business.kiid.ca
2. Flow: Work at a Flexible Company
While Kiid is a company of interest to parents and their employers, Flow is of interest to anyone who wants to find a flexible job in Quebec. This local focus makes it potentially more useful for Montreal-based workers than the US based FlexJobs.
Flow is job search platform that allows job seekers to find flexible working conditions–flexible hours, telework and unlimited vacation–things we can all appreciate. It also allows forward thinking companies a way to find employees who will be excited by the flexibility they offer.
Their website is primed for millenial searchers: “Looking for a job that fits your lifestyle and your values? Flow is the reference site for finding flexible employers in Quebec.”
To learn more: myflow.ca
3. Dialogue: Flexible Health Care
Dialogue provides progressive, premium and affordable healthcare, accessible across devices, for Canadian companies that are passionate about providing health benefits. In other words you can save on an expensive visit to the doctor’s office, and have a virtual check-up. Considering that 70 percent of doctor’s visits can be treated online, Dialogue promises big savings for everyone.
Imagine, having a real doctor’s visit at your work desk, and getting a prescription to boot. This is the future.
To find out more, visit www.dialogue.co
4. Oatbox for Business
Not everyone can pull off breakfast. Especially people with kids who are on the move from the crack of dawn. (Or before, more likely.) Oatbox is a service that mails you a healthy breakfast at work, as if Martha Stewart packed it herself. Employers could pretend that everyone is eating right, or they can buy a subscription to Oatbox and know that everyone is well fed.
This increases everyone’s energy, happiness and productivity, it decreases late arrivals, and gives culture a push when all the employees who didn’t eat breakfast can start the day noshing in the breakroom.
To learn more: www.oatbox.com
Conclusion
This is a morning at work in the brave new, on-demand world:
- Oatbox for breakfast at 8:45am
- A virtual doc visit at 10:15am
- Arranging a super-sitter for your 3-year old at 11:45am
- Checking-in at noon with remote teammates, hired online
Improving work-life balance is getting increasingly simple and inexpensive. That makes it a trend worth checking out, because it’s coming to a workplace near you, with or without you.
