Tips for Managing Work-Life Needs of Mid-Career Remote Employees

A work-first culture promotes the myth that once children are school-age, work-care needs decrease. However, employees are often surprised that work and life don’t necessarily become easier once the kids are older, more independent, or have graduated from high school.

This challenge is amplified for managers leading hybrid or fully remote teams. The blurred boundaries between work and home life make it difficult for employees to unplug and separate their professional and personal time. Communication and coordination hurdles across distributed teams increase the potential for burnout and overworking.

The truth is that most people need time and energy to integrate work and care across each career and family stage. Managers play a crucial role in promoting a culture that supports this integration for themselves and their hybrid/remote teams.

Work Challenges and Aspirations Mid-Career

After 10-15 years of work, many employees feel burned out, stuck, or bored. They invested a lot to rapidly advance up their career ladder. Now they may wonder if this is all there is and feel restless for change.

Financially locked in

By mid-career, many professionals get trapped in a cycle of rising expenses outpacing income increases:

• Overworking for promotions or changing jobs to increase income
• Committing to sizeable home/car loans with salary increases
• Covering unexpected family health, wellness, and other expenses
• Paying student loans while saving for kids’ college costs

Mid-career professionals may want to adjust their work-life mix but can’t due to financial responsibilities and living expense expectations.

It’s a career, not a job

Resolving these feelings may mean pursuing a new career rather than just a job change. Leaving an established career seems overwhelming due to the potential loss of experience, networks, status, and success.

Seeking meaning and purpose

Mid-career often coincides with “middlescence” — a transitional period of seeking greater meaning, sparking frustration and self-evaluation about one’s choices, identity, and aspirations for growth. It can lead to new directions and fresh beginnings.

Personal and Caregiving Responsibilities Mid-Career

“The sick, the old, and the tiny still need tending,” writes Darby Saxe. Fulfilling these needs falls largely on women.

Prioritizing kids’ potential over nurturing their own

The perfect parenting myth includes discovering and nurturing children’s interests and talents. Without intention, mid-career professionals lack time/energy for their own goals outside caretaking roles — risking an unfulfilled key adult developmental need.

Aging loved ones

Whether raising children or not, mid-career adults likely have aging caretaking duties, which can be challenging because not living together means missing micro health/behavior changes in their loved ones. They’re also assuming a role the loved one may resist.

There’s often a reckoning when finally confronting difficult dynamics from the past relationship. Just as with parenthood, caring for aging loved ones forces personal growth by stretching past self-limiting beliefs and spurring evolution in unexpected ways.

Self-Care

After years of unrelenting work/family demands, self-care is crucial for mid-career pros, who may need to:

• Recover from the tolls of raising young children
• Manage age/stress-related health conditions
• Set boundaries to avoid sacrificing wellbeing

Tips for Managing Mid-Career Work-Care Needs for Managers

As a manager, support your team’s holistic wellbeing by:

• Encouraging/modeling healthy boundaries — e.g. no after-hours emails
• Understanding personal obligations and providing flexibility
• Regularly discussing workload, life issues impacting work, and burnout risks
• Promoting the use of personal/vacation days, discouraging unnecessary overwork
• Creating “no meeting” blocks for uninterrupted focused work

Modeling these behaviors will create a culture where employees feel empowered to prioritize their life outside of work when needed without guilt or fear of consequences.

Managers should also be proactive about reclaiming their own time and energy amidst the unique challenges of leading remote/hybrid teams:

• Block personal time on your calendar and protect it from work obligations
• Take breaks away from devices during the workday, evenings, weekends, and vacations to recharge
• Practice delegating more work to your team and letting go of needing to control everything
• Invest in hobbies, exercise, social connections, etc. outside of work

An overly work-centric culture negatively impacts teams through decreased engagement, creativity, and productivity, as well as higher turnover and burnout rates. It also strains personal relationships and takes a toll on physical and mental health.

Leading companies like Patagonia, Salesforce, and Bombas are getting it right with robust work-life balance policies, generous parental leave, and cultures that truly value holistic wellbeing over relentless hustle.

While Businesses and Policies Evolve: A Manager’s Pledge

While awaiting broader change, let’s pledge to:

• Value caregiving equally to a career for resilience and fulfillment
• Showcase how caregiving boosts our capabilities at work and home
• Involve men, who can reshape perspectives through caregiving experiences
• Intentionally integrate work-life through self-care, financial planning, prioritizing family/goals