CAPITAL HEALTH
CAREER CONNECTION

Work - Life Balance - Possible or Myth?

What exactly is work-life balance? Is it as simple as a twenty-four hour equation of working eight hours, sleeping eight hours, and socializing eight hours or is it more specific to the individual? Generally speaking, it is the proper prioritizing of "work" (career and ambition) and "life" (family, pleasure, leisure, and spiritual development).

Work-life balance is different for each of us because we each have different priorities and strive for different outcomes. As individuals, we are aware of our personal capabilities and ideally, the organizations we work for are equipped with the tools to help us achieve a harmonious existence between our two worlds. Here are some tips that might help you to determine your unique balance.

First, in order of importance, list what matters to you most in your life. It might help to ask yourself, “What is my life’s most important focus? Second most? Third most?” Also, it is important to remember to reevaluate your list as your situation changes and time passes because what might seem important to you in your twenties might not be as relevant to you in your thirties.  

Second, remember that each priority doesn’t need to have equal attention paid, but must be important enough to gain some. Only you can determine the appropriate amount of time to be dedicated to any given priority.

Third, protect your personal time and defend the way you decided to divide your time among the areas you've prioritized. You can do that by learning to say “No” when you truly can’t manage the commitment, not allowing your work to follow you home or your home to follow you to work. You want to be as productive as possible in each area and overlapping might cause you to lull. Most important, accept help or delegate whenever possible. REMEMBER, plan the balance suitable to you and do not make the mistake to think that it is going to fit naturally in your busy schedule.

Lastly, the above is not possible without a supportive organization. Capital Health offers many work-life options to help employees balance their schedules; such as flexible work options, including variable scheduling, telecommuting, and the option to move to part-time work prior to retirement. Also, Capital Health's Healthy Workplace Department works to educate employees on topics such as healthy eating and exercising. Our Fun Crew host many festive events throughout the year such as family Fun Day, which this past September was held at a local farm, kayaking excursions, and holiday costume contests.

The health and well being of employees and their families is taken very seriously at Capital Health because how can we commit to treating our patient community with top notch and innovative care without doing the same for our employees.

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We value your feedback and that is why…

We are taking the time to respond to the most repeated comment from our first newsletter.

“I have applied for several positions but was never contacted for an interview nor did I receive a call informing me that the competition closed or was filled. Yet, I continue to hear about workforce shortages. Please explain."

Most of our vacancies are posted both internally and externally, meaning we receive both internal and external applications simultaneously. However, the screening and interviewing takes place with the internal staff prior to external applicants as we are a unionized environment and often times an internal applicant is selected.

Because Capital Health is committed to continually improving processes, we have recently changed the posting process for the majority of our Nursing vacancies. First, vacancies are posted internally only and if we fail to find a suitable internal candidate we will then post externally. Thus we will be able to eliminate disappointments of never being contacted with updates around your application. In this regard, we encourage our external candidates to apply for our generic postings on our website which will be our primary source of candidates should a position not be filled internally.

Also, we are working to improve our online application system to make it more user friendly. One of the enhancements we are looking at is an email notification that will update applicants on the status of their application(s). 

We would like to hear from you; please email any questions or comments to Recruitment.Services@cdha.nshealth.ca