Fundamental elements and approaches in balancing personal and work goals.

1. Practical Steps to a
Balanced Work-Life
Dr. Elijah Ezendu
FIMC, FCCM, FIIAN, FBDI, FAAFM, FSSM, MIMIS, MIAP, MITD, ACIArb, ACIPM,
PhD, DocM, MBA, CWM, CBDA, CMA, MPM, PME, CSOL, CCIP, CMC, CMgr

2. Learning Objectives
At the end of this course, participants should be able to
do the following:
• Identify the difference between personal life goals
and work goals
• Identify ways to manage relationships so as to
balance work and personal life
• Explain the impact of planning as a means of
achieving work-life balance
• Explain the roles of flexible work arrangements in
achievement of work-life balance

3. "The tragedy in life doesn't lie in not
reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in
having no goal to reach."
- Benjamin Mays

4. Defining Your Life Goals
Life goals are clear set of things an individual intends to achieve in
personal life.
Focus of Life Goals:
i. Family
ii. Career
iii. Education
iv. Physical
v. Community Service
vi. Spiritual Growth
vii.Financial
viii.Attitude
ix. Leisure
x. Artistic
xi. Friends

5. Defining Your Work Goals
Work goals comprise the things you intend to achieve
at workplace.
Focus of Work Goals:
i. Performance
ii. Work Behaviour
iii.Status
iv.Income
v. Relevance
vi.Career Development
vii.Competence

6. List Your Tasks
• Steps required to achieve the goals.
• Prioritize.
• Set deadlines.
• List resources needed.
• Ensure effectiveness of operational system.
• Review.

7. Obtaining Success
Objective Success: This represents visible and
measurable type of success such as purchase of
house, high salary, placement at high echelon,
ownership of vehicles.
Subjective Success: This refers to inner feeling of
success due to derived satisfaction with activities.
Example a woman who earns a low salary as a
teacher, yet she feels very successful because of
sense of fulfillment in the job.

8. Conflicting Personal and Work Goals
It is not uncommon for your personal life and work
goals to conflict.
For example, you need to be home by 6 pm every night
so your spouse can go to work, but your job requires
staying late for meetings. Your goal is to promote
and one of the requirements is to attend these
meetings. You need to decide if you can:
• Find a solution to attain your goal, or
• Change your goal to a more attainable one given
your situation
Source: Debbie LaCroix

9. Techniques for Improving Balance
• Get rid of distasteful activities
• Envision your future
• Reduce your clutter
• Limit distracting activities
• Engage in a meaningful project
• Plan your time
Source: Masterful Mentoring

10. Work Life Assessment 1
Work:
List the greatest benefits you obtain from your job, and rank the
value you derive therein (1= lowest value, 10=highest value)
1. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Rank the level of your satisfaction in your job
• Not satisfied
• Averagely satisfied
• Mostly Satisfied
• Totally satisfied

11. Work Life Assessment 2
Personal Life:
List the greatest benefits you obtain from your personal life, and
rank the value you derive therein (1= lowest value, 10=highest
value)
1. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. …………………………………………… 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Rank the level of your satisfaction in your personal life
• Not satisfied
• Averagely satisfied
• Mostly Satisfied
• Totally satisfied

12. Work Life Assessment 3
Ascertain which aspect is infringing on the
other, and identify the measures that must be
put into action to achieve balance.

13. Balancing work and personal life does not
necessarily mean ensuring equal amount of
time is spent on both sides; it involves
attaining satisfaction at work and in personal
life without attaching oneself to an avalanche
of menacing stress.

14. Balancing Work-Life At the Office

15. Gaining Management Endorsement
There’s need for the Human Resource
Department to ensure that every member of
the top management understands the impact
of implementation of work life balance on
both employees and the organisation.

16. Conducting Needs Analysis
• Identify business requirements and the
feasible flexible options
• Identify the flexible options that would aid
employees in achieving work-life balance
• Discover the common favourable options for
both business requirements and employees

17. Cost/Benefit Analysis
Resolving the opportunity cost of adopting each
flexible option and ascertaining the financial
implication on overall cost structure, while
profiling the attendant benefits.

18. Evaluation and Performance
Assessment
Herein the focus is to review the whole
programme and affix unambiguous score to
each operation and its actual impact with the
aim of distilling the most effective
programmes and refining the weak ones.

19. Managing Relationships

20. Using Your Calendar
• Add a meeting as soon as you know about it.
• Write dates for follow-up on calendar.
• Include personal deadlines.
• Have one master calendar.
• If you use an electronic calendar, back it up
regularly.

21. Eliminating things from your to-do list
• What’s the worst that can happen if I don’t do
this?
• Am I the only person who can do this?
• Must it be done now?
• Is there an easier way to do it?

22. Planning
“If you don’t know where you’re going, how will
you target it?”
“If you don’t know where you’re going, how
would you know when you get there?”
Planning is a key for solving such problems.

23. How Do I Plan?
1. Build a scenario of the future.
2. Align the scenario with your goals
3. Ascertain the gap
4. Identify the requirements for fulfillment
5. Implement the plan.

24. • Missed deadlines.
• Overlooked opportunities.
• Wasted time.
• Stress.
• Multiple performance problems.
• Poor or slow service.
• Wasted money.
The Result of not being organized

25. An individual needs to put his focus and
mind on the feasibility and operability of
the established plan in order to drive a
reasonable measure of commitment
based on purposefulness.

26. Types of Flexible Work
Arrangement
• Job Splitting
• Work Sharing
• Compressed Working
• Flexi-time
• Virtual Team
• Eworking

27. What do you consider as the advantages of
flexible work arrangements?

28. Dr Elijah Ezendu is Award-Winning Business Expert & Certified Management Consultant with expertise
in Interim Management, Strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Transformation, Restructuring, Turnaround
Management, Business Development, Marketing, Project & Cost Management, Leadership, HR, CSR, e-
Business & Software Architecture. He had functioned as Founder, Initiative for Sustainable Business
Equity; Chairman of Board, Charisma Broadcast Film Academy; Group Chief Operating Officer, Idova
Group; CEO, Rubiini (UAE); Special Advisor, RTEAN; Director, MMNA Investments; Chair, Int’l Board of
GCC Business Council (UAE); Senior Partner, Shevach Consulting; Chairman (Certification & Training),
Coordinator (Board of Fellows), Lead Assessor & Governing Council Member, Institute of Management
Consultants, Nigeria; Lead Resource, Centre for Competitive Intelligence Development; Lead
Consultant/ Partner, JK Michaels; Turnaround Project Director, Consolidated Business Holdings Limited;
Technical Director, Gestalt; Chief Operating Officer, Rohan Group; Executive Director (Various Roles),
Fortuna, Gambia & Malta; Chief Advisor/ Partner, D & E; Vice Chairman of Board, Refined Shipping;
Director of Programmes & Governing Council Member, Institute of Business Development, Nigeria;
Member of TDD Committee, International Association of Software Architects, USA; Member of Strategic
Planning and Implementation Committee, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria;
Country Manager (Nigeria) & Adjunct Faculty (MBA Programme), Regent Business School, South Africa;
Adjunct Faculty (MBA Programme), Ladoke Akintola University of Technology; Editor-in-Chief, Cost
Management Journal; Council Member, Institute of Internal Auditors of Nigeria; Member, Board of
Directors (Several Organizations). He holds Doctoral Degree in Management, Master of Business
Administration and Fellow of Professional Institutes in North America, UK & Nigeria. He is Innovator of
Corporate Investment Structure Based on Financials and Intangibles, for valuation highlighting
intangible contributions of host communities and ecological environment: A model celebrated globally
as remedy for unmitigated depreciation of ecological capital and developmental deprivation of host
communities. He had served as Examiner to Professional Institutes and Universities. He had been a
member of Guild of Soundtrack Producers of Nigeria. He's an author and extensively featured speaker.

29. Thank You