43% of two thousand senior executives and managers surveyed say they feel personal, home, and family life are balanced.

As a young employee I would think nothing of working extended or even excessive hours to get the job done. Now I realize how unfortunate this may have been on my life and career. You need to get away from work. You need to be removed mentally as well as physically so that you can de-stress and re-energize before you come back.

If you are expected to perform at full capacity you must have time off. Even if you really enjoy what you do. You need an opportunity for distraction and diversion. This is what will help you maintain peak performance during normal working hours. You can stay on the job more and actually get less done if you begin to burn out.

Here are my recommendations to keep employees fired up. Make it a point to debrief at the end of the day. Do the debriefing in advance of the days end. Make sure your folks walk out that door on time and don’t let them hang around. You will find in short order they are more motivated to work hard during their normal hours and get even more done.

I would like to talk briefly about paid time off or vacation time.  Use it or lose it should be the motto.  Employees should be required to use accumulated leave within a calendar year.  This will work wonders for their disposition.  Some will like it, others won’t; but doing this is the right thing for you the employer and for your employees.  In the end they will thank you for it or their families will.

Now I know many of you will be saying, “Our business is different”. Well, there could be some truth to that. But let me say that unless you are operating an organization in crisis mode you can do what I am proposing. Your lack of planning should not be the cause for operating in crisis mode. I can think of some examples of occasional exceptions; fire departments, police departments. But they don’t get a pass either because everyday is not a crisis day. These are the exceptions and not the rule.

I propose a NEW philosophy but it is not without some challenges. You must create the environment that allows for work to be accomplished efficiently, effectively, on time and during normal working hours. This will not take long. But, you must get everyone of your people working on the solution.

Moses said: Let My People Go!. “I say let your people go home. Tomorrow is another day, and they’ll be even more productive when they return.

Statistic From:  Human Resource Executive Magazine

Article originally appeared in Ezine Articles