I have read numerous times that housewives/husbands and mums/dads can bring a great deal of skill to the workplace given the numerous things they manage and execute at home. As a part time working mum this got me thinking that I may actually be carrying on my workplace skills over the whole seven day week. I work in administration and I have two business related degrees and I see so many parallels between business operations and how I organise home and family life.Study.com suggests that there are four main business functions – planning, organising, leading and controlling. These are key functions of running a family home too. Here is my fun intake on how my home runs like a business, metaphorically speaking, with me sat in my leather swivel chair!:
1.We have a mission statement and strategic objectives
A successful business stays true to its strategic mission and goals. A basis for a good relationship is often founded upon common beliefs, shared goals, values, hopes and dreams. You also work together to raise your family around these shared mindsets. I think this is what constitutes as your mission statement and strategic objectives at home. In our home our mission statement is to be happy and make memories that we can reminisce upon with a smile. We also want to raise our children bilingually. So our strategic objectives are to work hard to maintain a level of resource that allows us to have memorable adventures. Our children also enjoy the experience of Welsh medium education. Our shared values and goals give us the intrinsic motivation to work hard for our family.
2. Diary management
This is a huge one; we manage our own professional and personal diaries, not to mention that of the kids’ childcare, school, extracurricular and social diaries. I have literally 3 planners on the go – a wall planner, a paper diary and a Google calendar. Planning can go up yo eighteen months in advance!
3. Financial Management
We need to make sure that we have enough income to cover our expenses and that Bill’s are paid on time. We need to ensure that we have the necessary income to manage the outgoings and invest in the future.
4. Human Resources
We ensure that we are up to date with doctor, dentist, opticians and even haircuts! We also make sure we stay mentally and physically healthy and put measures in place to ensure this.
5.Team Bonding
I would class quality family time as team bonding. This can be sofa time just relaxing together with books or TV or even social activities, family days or holidays.
5. Training and Development
Teaching kids kids to succeed in life – not just the basics like self care, money management and house keeping but manners and values to make them nice people.
6. Performance management
We are responsible for ensuring our kids are brought up to be polite and well behaved human beings and to do their best. How we manage their behaviour could be likened to the way businesses performance manage their staff.
7. Reward systems
How do we, as individuals and as a family, treat ourselves when we achieve our goals? Could it be as simple as a glass of wine for making it through to Friday or a trip to the park for getting that homework done?
8. Public Relations
In this current age so many of us share our family life on social media. There are endless debates on how people curate their lives online ( you just need to Google insta versus reality) as though they are maintaining a positive family brand that’s not true to reality. I do believe this to be the case a lot of the time but my personal take is that I love the ‘memories’ feature on the apps and like looking back at the good stuff so on the whole I keep mine positive. This doesn’t mean that I’m pretending that life is perfect or editing out the bad bits. The rubbish parts are definitely there but I tend to deal with them privately the same way a business may do so.
9. Estates and Maintenance
Taking care of our family home’s infrastructure; DIY, gardening, renovations, servicing and repairs. We may keep this in-house using the family resources or outsource to different companies for some of the jobs.
10. Procurement
Buying things for the family and home and review your resources accordingly.
11. Legalities
Mortgages, loans, and insurance policies, TV licence and taxes – making sure we are compliance with the law when doing so.
12. Archive and Record Management
The home admin paperwork – the systems (or chaotic lack of!) for managing the admin that goes with all of the above!
This is my personal take of how I feel I’m applying business principles to the management of my home life and it’s just a tongue in cheek bit fun. But can there be lessons learned from approaching family life like a business? We need to stop underestimating how much we are honing our professional skills when managing a home, and make sure we bring them to the table in the workplace. I also think that there are underlying skills that we are perfecting at home that are critical to success in work such as working under pressure, dealing with the unexpected, managing conflicting priorities, dealing with multiple tasks simultaneously, the list goes on.
I do think we can take confidence boost from this when we are trying to juggle family and a professional life. The basic measure to success common to both work and home should be happiness, and if we are getting anywhere near to this in both places then our missions are being accomplished!
My Lifestyle Diaries 