Sue Covelli-Buntley is joined today by Kim Sandifer, a Lead HR Business Partner at HALO Solutions and most recently held the position of Vice President, HR Business Partner to C-Suite and Senior Leaders at CNA Insurance. She is a Human Resources executive with a consistent track record of enabling business results by delivering value added HR Consultation. Kim has over fifteen years of experience as a business partner connecting talent strategies to business outcomes and ensuring HR processes and programs are practical, deliver value and create a great employee experience.

[00:30] Introducing Kim Sandifer

[05:22] Setting Boundaries and the Meaning of Work-Life Integration

[11:45] How to Set Boundaries

[23:23] Learning Through Others, Creating Dialogue, and Doing Well at Work

[40:50] Lightning Round

[46:51] Closing Notes

Kim doesn’t believe in work-life balance. Instead, she believes in balance as integration. Achieving work-life integration is a journey; each phase of the journey may feel different and how you go about attaining balance or equilibrium in your life looks different at every stage. Setting boundaries is a way to go about establishing that integration and can look very different for each of us as individuals. The paradigm of work-life balance 20 years ago was about perfection: you could be a working mom and juggle so many balls at the same time, which created a false perception of work-life balance. Kim looks at integration as self-reflection for our own personal idea of success “how do you focus where you need to focus and be present where you need to be present throughout the day?"

Putting boundaries in place allows us the mental capacity to be present in whatever we’re doing, whether in our work or in our personal life. Kim believes that when we don’t set boundaries, we can't show up as our best selves because of stress and exhaustion. She advises two things: first is to let go of myths such as working long hours to "prove" success. The second is letting go of the mindset that a perfect means having a perfect life. As a mom herself, what’s important is the time spent with her partner and children. Boundaries offer protection and freedom to achieve personal and career goals.

Another mental model that Kim advocates for is knowing that you have a tribe you can reach out to for help. Among companies, there is a fear of having an open dialogue because leaders feel unable to give options or solutions to their peoples’ problems. For Kim, the solution comes from the dialogue. These solutions can look different in every organization and is not a one-size-fits-all but if organizations don’t know what’s going on, they can’t help people to figure out which solutions to put in place.

Kim advises to keep asking questions and challenging one another, because that’s the only way we can help each other step back and rethink possibilities. One of the things Kim is most grateful for is that she can see things differently and expand her thinking, and she predicts that the conversation around integration and work-life balance is going to look so different in the years to come. Forget the whats: how do we get it done?

Gratitude is extremely critical for mental health and just being grounded, centered, and graceful is something we need to be as well as to provide more for each other. If we can come from a place of grace and assume positive intent, it ends with better outcomes. When having difficult conversations, if you assume positive intent and give people grace, if you can look at the situation through a different lens, and Kim thinks that this mindset can help us progress better as human beings.

For more information on becoming an excellent leader, visit the Upspiral Leadership Website, and remember to tune in to our next episode.