Reena Vokoun, founder of PassionFit, shares how she negotiated four-day office weeks with remote Fridays at Google after maternity leave, keeping that arrangement for four years. She outlines flexible-schedule options like compressed workweeks and remote days, stressing the need to test arrangements and adjust them continuously to prevent burnout.
Hi guys, my name is Reena Vokoun and I'm the founder of PassionFit. Today I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about work-life balance and why it's so important to have a flexible schedule so that you can better meet the needs of your professional and your personal life. When I was working for Google, I was able to negotiate for a flexible schedule after I came back from maternity leave after my younger son was born. I basically put together a proposal for my boss, and I thought about how I could get the work done in shorter hours of time in the office but still have the flexibility to work from home whenever I needed. So I was able to carve out a schedule where I worked 4 shorter days in the office, and then I worked from home on Fridays. And it proved to be really successful, and I was able to carry carry this arrangement out for about 4 years. So think about what your job looks like and what arrangement might work best. Maybe it's working from home a couple days a week, perhaps it's working shorter days in the office, or maybe it's working fewer days altogether each week. You really need to think about how you can meet the needs of your employer but also meet the needs of your family. It's also really important to stay flexible and be willing to test out an arrangement and keep working towards what's going to work best for your boss and your team as well as yourself. But take that time to figure out what's going to work for you because having work-life balance can really help from preventing stress as well as burnout and will just allow you to lead a much more fulfilling life. Thanks as always for tuning in. If you're interested in learning more about this topic, I do have additional blog posts on my website at passionfit.com and I also have additional work-life balance videos on my YouTube channel. Feel free to like, subscribe, subscribe and tell your family and friends. Thanks so much and have a great day.
