Month: January 2019

The Importance of Your Work-Life Balance

The world is constantly striving to be better, faster, and more successful. We can see that in our technological advancements that improve productivity which drive up profits. Driven by money, employers place their employees under chronic stress that could put their mental health at risk. When employees are not provided with healthy alternatives or stress management skills, they can easily turn to unhealthy ways of coping such as smoking, drinking, and drugs. At any workplace, it is important to have resources like stress management education, addiction recovery resources, and drug addiction support.

I value having plenty of work-life balance in my future career because I have struggled to deal with stress under various circumstances that have put my mental health at risk. I am still learning stress management while balancing my daily activities from school to work to my personal life.

Now, what exactly is work-life balance? And what is its relation to workplace addiction?

The Fine Balance Between Work and Life

Work-life balance is an individual’s balance between time for work and time for other aspects of life such as family, friends, personal time, etc. So, unfortunately, I don’t have a rubric for what is a perfect balance between work and life since each individual prioritizes and values things differently. He/she may be in different stages of life and have different economic statuses.  As an individual, it is your responsibility to understand what your own work-life balance is in order to establish healthy habits in your everyday life. It will not only benefit yourself but also those around you, from coworkers to friends to your family members. I have found it interesting to look at the generational differences between my father’s work-life balance and mine.

Although my father is part of Gen X, his work-life balance is similar to that of those in the Baby Boomers generation. It is probably because he experienced many hardships growing up and despite having only a high school degree, he worked his way to the States with my family in tow.  Although family time was important to my father, he worked around 12 hours a day and on weekends because providing for his family was more important. Because he worked so much, he experienced moderate to high levels of stress that did affect the household dynamics. It’s better now, but it’s not unusual that he has been at that company for more than 10 years since, which is very different for millennials like me.

My ideal work-balance in a career is where the stress stays at work and doesn’t come home with me. For me, it is important that I have time for myself for personal reflection as well as time to pursue my hobbies. By participating in activities that give me joy, I then have a way to relieve my daily stress from work, and that is something I highly value on a day-to-day basis. I know that if I work continuously without any breaks or time for leisure, my productivity levels would drop and I would be prone to having more anxiety attacks. New tech companies like LinkedIn and Apple offer great work-life balance when they provide their employees with many health, fitness, nutritional, and networking benefits.

Poor Work-Life Balance Leads to Poor Choices

Poor work-life balance leads to constant stress on a person’s mental state which could lead to mental health issues. When one’s mental state is not stable, they are more likely to not have control over their impulses and become a perfect victim of alcohol and drug abuse.

The food & beverages industry is an industry in which poor work-life balance can be found. It is non-stop physical work and constant communication with people who aren’t necessarily the nicest. Imagine having to constantly deal with entitled customers who are seen as “royalty” and letting them talk down to you while you force a smile back and heed their almost every need, and then be given little to no tips. Let’s add on that you may have a family to support, or you’re taking night classes to finish school, so you’re really working hard and being treated like trash. You’re going to want to relax afterward, but the question is how? Having worked in this industry, I remember going home with a small bottle of wine to drink by myself (in moderation of course). But, I did have coworkers that would go out that same night to the club as a way to cope with the stress. They’ll come to work the next evening still hungover. Another thing that isn’t uncommon is that workers step out for a quick smoke after a super busy and stressful day.

Chronic stress in the workplace that goes unchecked can increase one’s vulnerability to addiction. The Self-Medication Hypothesis (first published in the American Journal of Psychiatry) offers an explanation as to why unchecked chronic stress at work may lead people to alcohol and substance abuse. When people are feeling bad, it’s only natural to want to feel good or get away from the situation that makes them feel bad.

Impacts of Workplace Addiction

Workplace addiction isn’t confined to just the food & beverage industry, it is most likely present everywhere you go. Workplace addiction is harmful and dangerous to both the company and its employees as seen in decreases of profit and increases of occupational injuries and fatalities. It’s hard to work with employees who are often tardy, requesting excessive days, sleeping on the job, making poor decisions due to being hungover, or overly aggressive or defensive. These are some of the effects of workplace addiction, and they serve as signs of addiction to watch out for as employers.

Creating a Healthy Workplace

In order to create a healthy workplace to benefit both the employer and employee, it is important to take time to learn about stress management. Some things you could do to manage your stress are:

  • Write down what stresses you out
  • Take time for yourself and relax
  • Get support if you need it
  • Develop healthy responses to stressful circumstances

Employers can do their part by establishing an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to address alcohol and drug problems and support recovery for addiction. For employees working remotely, there are also many online addiction recovery resources available.

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Outbound Marketing vs Inbound Marketing

Sometimes when I feel a need to stretch my legs, I would take a short walk to my neighborhood Starbucks with just my phone, house key, and a book (currently it’s been Kevin Kwan’s Rich People Problems). And sometimes, I’d people-watch, peering over my paperback from time to time. I know that I am young, but I am still surprised by how fast the digital age, that started in the 1970s, would quickly consume many aspects of my life in just 20 years. Everyone’s on an electronic device. While I still prefer the smell of actual books over the convenience of kindles and looking at advertisements on Starbucks’ pinboard, I know I’d probably have an anxiety attack without my phone and that online marketing really works when I end up buying a super expensive hair dryer because some Instagram celebrities I was following, raved about it.

With the rapid development of the internet and the constant updates to technology over the years, it is no surprise that businesses are investing more in inbound marketing in their internet marketing. (Now that was a mouthful to say). To understand inbound marketing, we must also understand outbound marketing. My goal here is to compare the two and persuade you that one is better than the other especially if you want to target people my age (who will most likely be your major consumers when we start making big bucks after graduation), and of course, everyone else in the States that average 11 hours of screen time a day. Think of the endless opportunities in internet marketing!

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The Outbound Marketing in Traditional Marketing

Before explaining the new trend that is inbound marketing, it’s best to explain the past in order to understand the present. That’s what history class taught me anyway: we learn from our past so we can do better in the future. Although, not everyone adopts this method…

Jokes aside, outbound marketing is a method of traditional marketing that seeks to drive sales through mass publications in TV ads, radio advertising, print advertising, email salesletters, direct mail, yellow pages, telemarketing, and outdoor billboards. In other words, these are the annoying “I’m going to shove myself in your face” type of advertisements that we tend to avoid. Unless, of course, you actually do enjoy your favorite TV show/movie being interrupted by TV commercials or having to open the door to hard-working salesmen that you just don’t have the time to entertain.

As intrusive as these methods are in our daily lives, they continue to exist and are now considered traditional marketing because they still work. They work because they are everywhere you go so that you unconsciously remember bits and pieces of different campaigns you may come across. They’ll pop up in your mind when you least expect. Traditional marketing uses outbound marketing strategies to reach everyone.

However, outbound marketing is no longer working as efficiently as it did in the past because consumers have adapted and learned how to avoid or tune out the tactics of traditional marketing. For example, streaming services like Netflix and Hulu now allow consumers to binge watch their favorite shows without advertisements, and Spotify Premium lets consumers enjoy music without interruption. Some do say that because we are on our phones so much that we no longer have time to look at billboards anymore. I would beg to differ since I get motion sickness from being on my phone in a moving vehicle and I’d like to not be on my phone while crossing the streets so I can watch out for cars. And I love billboards (the good ones).

Although traditional marketing still works with its outbound tactics, consumers are becoming smarter and technology more advanced. Consequently, it’s important to turn to internet marketing and reap the benefits that inbound marketing can offer there.

The New Trend That Is Inbound Marketing

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Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing through the Web and email. Inbound marketing takes online marketing tactics such as search engine optimization, content creation, calls-to-action, social media, and emails to create communication between the business and its consumers that is beneficial for lead generation, which leads to sales.  

As internet and technology advance, consumers are given the tools to find what they want on their own, which means they are more likely to turn a blind eye to a billboard and jump onto Google searching “best specialty coffee in San Francisco.” Using inbound marketing, a marketer creates leads for the consumer by managing a Yelp page, a Google+ page, a website/blog all the while, improving SEO rankings for his/her company.  Consumers have access to a company’s leads simply with a few touches on a smartphone or laptop. Inbound marketing empowers and informs the consumer on the product they need or desire.

Inbound marketing not only benefits big businesses but also smaller business on a budget because internet marketing is considerably cheaper to run than buying billboard spaces, paying for TV advertisements, etc. Although it demands a smaller budget, online marketing can be very difficult and requires marketers who have an understanding of marketing in general, strong communication skills, and the ability to manage multiple channels constantly. Anyone can set up a website or blog, but not everyone can make it a successful one. There is more and more competition online as businesses are quickly learning the skills for online marketing, and one misstep could cause you to be bumped down in SEO rankings, meaning you’ll show up on the second page of a search rather than the first.

Inbound Marketing At Work

One of my favorite inbound marketing campaigns is Everlane’s Transparency Tuesday on its Instagram stories. Everlane is a clothing brand focused on “Exception quality. Ethical factories. Radical Transparency.” Although I have not purchased anything from the company, I’m already a fan and plan to purchase simply because Everlane does a great job at communicating and being transparent with its online audience. It allows consumers and prospective customers such as I to feel that they are friends and that the people in the company have our best interests in mind. I know that if I want clothes that are ethically produced, I can count on Everlane to provide that for me.

Potato Chip Thoughts on Internet Marketing

I personally think that the idea behind inbound marketing also extends to our work cultures. For example, old-school corporate companies threaten their employees with unemployment to enforce hard work, while new tech companies like Google and LinkedIn offer many employee benefits in exchange for hard work. Similarly, outbound marketing in traditional marketing puts their products on blast in order to reach more people and generate more sales, while inbound marketing lays out bread crumbs of interest for consumers to gain their trust and loyalty and then achieve sale results. There’s a whole shift from impersonal to personal as businesses move from throwing information at their customers to opening up dialogue with consumers in internet marketing. It seems businesses are empowering the consumers to be in charge… or are they?