How to set workplace boundaries
With many of us working from home permanently or for the foreseeable future, the boundaries between work and home have become blurred. Maybe this has resulted in you working longer hours and you haven’t taken a long vacation since the start of the pandemic. Or maybe it has resulted in you feeling less pressure to be social with your coworkers and you’ve found you have better boundaries since you’re no longer grabbing drinks or attending in-person social events. Maybe you are more comfortable working odd hours to allow more time with your family or maybe it feels like work never stops.
Regardless of where you are in your career right now, it’s good to reevaluate your boundaries regularly. Are they working for you? What new boundaries might you need to set? What boundaries might be worth relaxing?
Types of boundaries you can set
Time Off
Whether you stick to your working hours when things get busy
Whether you check in on email/slack after hours
Whether you take a sick day when you are sick
Whether you take a lunch break
Whether you cancel doctors appointments or other personal tasks when they conflict with work or whether you work your work schedule around them
Daily Work
What types of work you will do outside of your job description
Who sets your priorities and workload and what you do when it exceeds a reasonable level
Whether you compromise your focus time for meetings and how many meetings you will attend in a day
Whether you install work apps on your personal phone
Environment
How often you are willing to travel for work
Whether you will travel for work during the pandemic
Whether you are willing to go to the office regularly or only work remotely
Socializing
What elements of your personal life you share with your colleagues (family life, religion, cultural traditions, physical / mental health details)
What types of work social events you attend
Whether you drink at work events
What work extracurriculars (social committees, employee resource groups) you participate in
Whether you advertise for your employer on your personal social media
There’s no such thing as the perfect set of boundaries and one person’s boundaries could be limiting for another person. Choose the boundaries that are important to you and customize them to your situation. Some boundaries might be Never/Always boundaries while others might be Mostly/Often boundaries. Make sure you are clear to yourself and others.
Remembers, if a boundary is important to you, you don’t need the perfect justification. While many working parents need to sign off work on-time because of family commitments, a single person can still set those boundaries if it is important to them. If you are taking a staycation and not traveling, that doesn’t mean you should feel pressured to respond to slack messages or attend meetings more than someone traveling without internet access.
How to set your boundaries
Identify your boundaries and articulate them clearly — Write them down and be specific. When appropriate, share them with others. For example, you could share a working hours boundary with a colleague who regularly schedules evening meetings: “I can’t attend meetings after 5pm as I have personal commitments.” You can choose whether to qualify with a reason or not, but you don’t owe it to anyone. For best results be clear and specific (“I can’t attend meetings after 5pm” vs. “I generally can’t do late night meetings”) so your colleague understands the boundary.
Create a plan for when the boundary is tested — Even with the best of intentions, your boundaries will be tested. A meeting will be scheduled outside your working hours, an important project will overlap with a doctor’s appointment, you’ll be asked to drink at a work event. If you wait to determine a plan of action until it happens, you might compromise your boundaries or struggle to navigate the situation. Write down what you could say or even practice saying it to a friend so you’ll be ready. In rare cases, a coworker or manager may not respect the boundary. Identify what steps you will take in that situation, for example escalating the issue, looking for another job, or changing teams.
Set the boundary — When it comes down to it set the boundary clearly and firmly. You don’t need to dive into a ton of detail, apologize, or work extra hours to make up for setting the boundary. If your coworker, manager, or employer, makes you feel like you aren’t a good employee because of this boundary, it might be a sign that you are not in the right work environment.
Utilize your boundaries in the job search — Utilize job descriptions, role guidelines, and company websites to understand whether a potential role aligns with your boundaries. When interviewing, ask for examples or past scenarios that speak to the company’s ability to respect the boundaries. You can ask questions like: How many vacation days did you take last year? What percentage of employees take sick days when they are sick? What are your working hours and what are the hours of the team? What are the expectations for joining meetings outside of working hours? Can you share an example of when you needed to work outside of your normal hours? Use the reset of joining a new company as an opportunity to clarify your Always/Never boundaries with your manager and other close colleagues so it’s clear from the beginning.
Adapt and change your boundaries throughout your career — You don’t need to be rigid about your boundaries or apologize for changing them. At one point in your life, you might rely on work as your main social network and at another point you might want more clear boundaries between work and home. At some points in your life, you might not mind working long hours, at other times it might be important to you to end at a certain time.
The further you progress in your career and at your company, the more privilege and influence you will have. This means you will be unlikely to face career consequences for setting firm boundaries and people may respect and applaud you for doing so. In these cases, it can be good to share your boundaries more widely so others feel comfortable setting similar boundaries.
Consider the following ideas:
Set your Calendar, Slack Status, or out of office messages to reflect when and why you are not working (“Family Time”, “Doctors Appointment”, “Off Working Hours”, “Walking my dog”).
Take all your vacation days and sick days and celebrate team members for doing so. This also applies to taking parental leave.
Schedule email and slack messages for working hours rather than messaging someone outside their working hours. Be known as someone who doesn’t respond outside of your working hours.
Advertise if you are not able to travel or participate in in-person events during the pandemic and celebrate others for choosing what’s safe for them and their community.
Asking your colleagues to share their boundaries and respecting that even when it involves rescheduling meetings or pushing back a deadline.