It’s been almost exactly four years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the immense changes it brought to our lives, including in how we work. For many the rise of remote work came as a welcome resetting of work and life. For others, it blurred the lines between life and work too much, and burnout became more and more prevalent.
Now, four years later, we’re still trying to navigate the best ways to work and live. And as more and more companies bring people back to the office, the question of work-life balance is back in the spotlight as employees strive to manage time, wellness, and productivity.
“The idea of ‘work-life balance’ becomes more complicated with remote work. When you're not necessarily checking in and out every day with those clear boundaries, ‘work-life integration’ becomes a much better term. It’s about taking a fresh view on flexibility, and working to ensure your work and personal lives are supporting one another,” says Alex Simmons, Co-Founder and CEO of Boon, a personalized coaching platform that works with employers to transform teams both personally and professionally, by supporting the professional development and mental well-being of employees.
No matter what you call it, work-life balance and integration is all about employee wellbeing and it remains top of mind for employees.
Individual managers largely contribute to how employees perceive their own work-life balance, a study done by Culturebie shows. But companies can do a lot to make sure employees and managers are set up for success:
- Remote flexibility helps employees have time back in their day for the things they need and want to do
- Childcare benefits remove some of the stressors and barriers that parents may face in balance work with their families
- Ample policies for time off help employees recharge — but only when there’s a culture that encourages employees to actually take time off
- Mental health resources like Boon, or mental wellness days/weeks help employees manage stress, recharge, and find a path forward for success
We’ve partnered with Boon to find some of the best companies for work-life balance that offer amazing benefits like these. Many of them are hiring locally and remotely. And all 34 prioritize their people.
Best Companies For Work-Life Balance: Small-Sized Companies
Image courtesy of Signal Advisors
Signal Advisors
Signal Advisors is a Detroit-founded, remote-friendly software startup that helps financial advisors grow their businesses, with the ultimate goal of supporting Americans on their journey to retirement. The company has an open, people-first culture with some amazing benefits, making it a desirable place for work-life balance. Here are just a few of their benefits: wellness stipend, unlimited paid vacation, paid health days, paid holidays and Personal Significance Days, Summer Fridays, and Remote flexibility, with several offices across the US to foster in-person collaboration.
Image courtesy of AccumTech
AccumTech
AccumTech, an Ann Arbor tech company building custom software, prioritizes the well-being of employees and understands the importance of creating an environment where they can thrive both personally and professionally. They offer a range of initiatives and programs to promote wellness and flexibility. AccumFit, the company’s fitness club, provides a supportive community for employees to prioritize their health; plus there’s a gym in their building that is available for everyone to use. The company’s open PTO policy empowers employees to take time off as needed to recharge, rejuvenate, and tend to personal matters without the stress of accumulating leave days. Having every other Friday off allows extended weekends for rest, relaxation, and pursuing personal passions, ensuring that our team members return to work feeling refreshed and energized. The company also has flexibility in hours and hybrid office work. Core hours are from 10:00 AM to 3:30 PM; outside of these core hours, employees have the flexibility to manage their schedules according to their individual needs and preferences. Hybrid work enables employees to strike the right balance between work and life, tailoring their work environment to suit their productivity and personal preferences.
Image courtesy of Rivet Work
Rivet Work
Rivet Work is a software company helping support the construction industry. They offer ample time off to support a healthy work-life balance: generous PTO (starts at 3 weeks and increases over time), 10 days of sick leave (personal and family) each year—and if you don’t use them they roll over. Riveters also enjoy 11 paid holidays as well as the days off between Christmas Day and New Year's Day when the company is shut down. Riveters meet in-office three days a week, which gives the team flexibility for balancing their personal and professional lives. Life happens and if more remote time is needed, the Rivet team will support you.
Image courtesy of RocketReach
RocketReach
RocketReach, a data platform and the de-facto productivity solution for sales and recruitment teams, is dedicated to providing a safe space to achieve work-life balance for their employees. They trust their employees to do good work and believe everyone should be able to structure their schedules to accommodate their lives and families. RocketReach believes that your personal life needs TLC in order to show up and do your best work. They have an unlimited PTO policy that is actually honored. In addition, they have a minimum amount of vacation days you must take — recharging, taking breaks, and taking vacations are fundamental to mental well-being and performance at RocketReach.
Image courtesy of GreenLancer
GreenLancer
GreenLancer is a renewable energy startup based in Detroit, Michigan with a passionate team of diligent, hard workers. But leadership knows what burnout looks like and how fast it can take over a team. For that reason, work time is flexible. Whether it's a surprise summer Friday (which there tend to be many of) or being able to head out a bit early to go to your kid's sporting event or a therapy session — the team works smart, balancing hard work with being effective. GreenLancer also has flexibility with PTO and takes a results-oriented approach: there’s high trust among team members as long as they're working towards their goals and creating positive outcomes.
Image courtesy of Sun & Water
Sun & Water
Sun & Water is a management consulting firm helping companies with their IT and business transformation projects. Work-life balance comes naturally to the founders and it’s become part of the DNA of the company. They understand that someone’s motivation would be negatively impacted if work came before their passions. It all comes down to this: When the project manager is prioritizing work-life balance, so can the rest of the team. Their entire business philosophy and team structure helps project managers live their best life.
Image courtesy of Vetr Health
Vetr Health
Vetr Health is on a mission to inspire a new era of veterinary care. They’re building a tech-enabled, membership-based, in-home veterinary care for service for pets. Its annual memberships are focused on wellness and preventative care, and also better serves vets. The vet industry is currently facing vet shortages and a burnout crisis. Vetr is on a mission to help. They start team members at 15 days of PTO, 11 paid holidays, and unlimited sick days (they want you to stay home and feel better). In addition, Vetr offers a 4-day work week with a maximum of 7 households per day (for veterinary team members). Flexible scheduling allows the veterinary team members to pick the days they want to work. They also have work-from-home options for telehealth appointments. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the team understands the power of a beautiful day: they offer flexible work from home days around the holidays or on beautiful days when we all need to get outside and enjoy the sunshine! They trust the team to get their work done.
Image courtesy of PanOptic
PanOptic Quality Systems
PanOptic Quality Systems offers the comprehensive capabilities and deep industry knowledge necessary to help you achieve worry-free software development releases. PanOptic offers unlimited PTO, remote work, and an open collaborative office space in Royal Oak. PanOptic employees are empowered to embody the entrepreneurial spirit with all their customer engagements.
Image courtesy of TripSlip
TripSlip Inc
TripSlip is performing a digital transformation of permission slips, field trips and experiential learning. Based in Detroit, the TripSlip team has successfully connected teachers, parents and venues in an app based platform. As TripSlip continues to grow, the leaders always keep culture and employee needs top of mind. TripSlip is a projects and outcomes-driven company doing much of the work in sprints. Because the work is equal parts proactive and reactive, the hours are non-traditional. They allow unlimited PTO and celebrate all wins: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, you name it. They work hard and rest well.
Drag Me Inc
Drag Me is a platform for discovering, experiencing, and supporting the art of drag: book tickets easily, explore recommended artists, and support the queer community. Drag Me is a company founded with the intent to be inclusive and equitable from Day One, supporting many of the underrepresented groups in the industry. The company is also supportive of its employees. Great for work-life balance, Drag Me offers a four-day workweek (Mon-Thur), flexible working hours (Core hours: 8 am to 12 pm PST / 11am to 3pm EST), unlimited PTO, a company-wide shutdown week during the winter holidays, and a remote-first setting. Leadership focuses more on the completion of tasks, not working for a certain number of hours every week. They trust employees to complete their work with no micromanaging. They also create a safe space for underserved communities at work, putting people before profits, always.
Image source: BizStream
BizStream
Based in Michigan, BizStream is a digital agency specializing in branding, web design, web development, digital strategy, consulting, CMS platform selection, and more. The team has flexible hours and offers Tuesdays and Thursdays as options for work-from-home days. But they make sure that coming into the office is worth it: a fun atmosphere allows for people to take breaks and enjoy games, and the full kitchen always has fresh fruit and coffee for days. Other benefits that support a healthy work-life balance include gym stipends, free tax preparation from the company’s accountant, and a generous PTO/Holiday schedule.
Alpine IQ
AIQ "Alpine IQ" was founded in 2019 and has since grown to become a large established player supporting thousands of stores. AIQ is a “Great Place To Work” certified and employees highlight the great work-life balance they have here. They offer unlimited PTO and encourage employees to use it. In addition they have a paid parental leave policy of 14 weeks, remote flexibility, and a supportive culture.
Image source: Formic
Formic
Formic is dedicated to helping manufacturing businesses across the United States supercharge their productivity through fully managed automation robots. Employees rank Formic highly for work-life balance because of its people-first culture. They have Flexible Time Off (FTO) which bundles vacation and personal time off—they trust employees to know what’s best for them and take the time off they need. While they do have an office in Chicago, they are a global and remote-first team, offering flexibility for work location.
Best Companies For Work-Life Balance: Medium-Sized Companies
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data.world
data.world provides a cloud-native SaaS platform that leverages the power of the knowledge graph to make data discovery, governance, and analysis easy. At data.world, the team functions as a fully remote environment with half the company located in the Austin area while the rest is dispersed throughout the US! They boast an open vacation benefit as well as offer a wellness and enrichment bonus that can be used on anything employees consider to fall under the category, as well as a stipend for new employees to help them set up their home office.
Image courtesy of LeanTaaS
LeanTaaS
LeanTaaS prioritizes the well-being, satisfaction, and productivity of our employees by embracing a “flexibility-first” approach. This empowers employees to work at flexible start and end times tailored to their needs. They offer competitive paid time off, sick leave, and paid parental leave. In addition to observing federal holidays, employees get additional days off at the end of the year to refresh and reset. LeanTaaS also provides a monthly reimbursement on wellness, commuting, or home office expenses. Additionally, the company supports skill building and professional development through reimbursements, allowing for employees to enhance and expand their skill sets. Their collaborative work environment fosters clear communication channels to set expectations and deadlines, helping employees manage their workloads effectively. They seek to create an environment that supports our employees with the ongoing goal of being a great place to work.
Image courtesy of GameChanger
GameChanger
GameChanger is a technology company that builds simple and powerful products for youth sports teams and their communities. They are fully remote and hire from anywhere in the U.S. In addition to remote flexibility, GameChanger employees enjoy unlimited vacation time, a Gympass membership, virtual and in person team events, and more. These are some of the reasons why employees rate GameChanger highly for work-life balance.
Image courtesy of Zapier
Zapier
Zapier, a fully distributed no-code automation company on a mission to make automation work for everyone, is one of the best companies for work-life balance. Spanning 800+ team members across 18+ time zones, Zapiens can work asynchronously in a setting that suits their lifestyles, all while serving their global customer base. They believe teammates thrive when they have the freedom and flexibility to work where and when they want. Working in a distributed environment doesn’t keep teammates from bonding and having fun, either. They have hundreds of #fun Slack channels to share interests outside of the workplace, including #fun-cooking, #fun-dogs, and #fun-music. Although Zapiens love asynchronous work, they meet regularly and have monthly meet-up budgets to share a meal over Zoom or do something fun with nearby teammates. Once a year, they host an all-company retreat to further develop the relationships that enable them to work together effectively. With their flexible time-off policy, most teammates take 4-6 weeks off for vacation and holidays. Zapier also offers a lifestyle spending account to support their teammates’ wellness, travel, and personal expenses.
Image source: OCLC LinkedIn
OCLC
Based in Dublin, Ohio, OCLC is a tech company empowering libraries with technology solutions, timely research, and community programs. This mission-driven organization is recognized as a top place to work, and that includes work-life balance. They have excellent benefits that support employee wellness like mental health resources and wellness education, and they also provide a great hybrid work experience to help employees better integrate work and life. Their culture supports community involvement and helping employees take care of their families.
Strive Health
Strive Health uses advanced technology and predictive analytics to help healthcare providers and payors to care for patients with kidney disease. Care is at the heart of the company’s mission, both for patients and for employees. The company offers many wellbeing benefits for physical health, career health, financial health, family health, and mental health: meditation sessions, annual wellbeing days off, generous paid time off, volunteer days, access to Gympass and more all help Strivers integrate work and life and stay balanced.
Image source: Bounteous
Bounteous
Bounteous co‑innovates with the world's most ambitious brands to create transformative digital experiences. Highly ranked by employees for culture and balance, Bounteous is one of the best companies for work-life balance. They offer fully remote flexibility and hybrid options to help you work where you want and thrive. Their award-winning culture fuels creativity and a deep sense of belonging.
Uplight
As the market-leading customer engagement, enrollment, and load flexibility platform for energy providers, Uplight is helping build a more sustainable future. The company is a Certified B Corp and has been recognized as a top workplace. Employees rate Uplight highly for work-life balance. They enjoy a flexible PTO policy to help them recharge, parental leave and support programs to help employees’ focus on their growing families, and ERGs to help create a culture of belonging. They also offer remote flexibility and monthly wellness stipend to support balance and wellbeing.
Image source: Bunny Studio
Bunny studio
Bunny Studio is a creative fulfillment platform powered by technology and by humans. It works with the world's top 4% of specialized professionals, to deliver voice overs, writing, video, and design services in more than 100 languages and accents. This remote-first startup is a great company for work-life balance. They offer tons of flexibility, 4 months of paid parental leave, and a subscription to Headspace. For PTO, they have a flexible policy with a minimum of 3 weeks yearly. Additionally, Fridays are the company’s “push, learn, play” days for employees to work, take up a course, or simply relax. It’s Bunny’s approach to a four-day work week and how they help employees support a great “work-life integration.”
Image courtesy of Pathlabs
Pathlabs
Pathlabs is an end-to-end media execution partner built for agencies. Headquartered in Missoula, Montana, Pathlabs is a hybrid/remote-friendly company, operating wherever their team is located. To help support employee work-life balance, they offer flexible, unlimited PTO and 13 paid holidays—and are encouraged to take that PTO. They also have company events like weekly virtual yoga, flexible Fridays, and more.
Image source: Zoro LinkedIn
Zoro
Zoro is a Chicago/remote eCommerce company that’s on a mission to provide business owners everything they need to operate and thrive. Employees highly rank Zoro for culture and work-life balance—and have the policy and accolades to back it up. They offer generous financial benefits (like discounts on home and auto insurance—one less thing to worry about!), as well as remote and hybrid flexibility for employees to choose what works best for them.
Level Access
The Level Access digital accessibility solution combines the most robust platform and deepest bench of accessibility expertise to help organizations create accessible and legally compliant websites, mobile apps, software, and other technology. Recharging is a core part of their employee benefits. They honor flexible time off because they protect work-life balance. Remote work also allows employees to take care of their needs and have some time back to themselves.
HopSkipDrive
HopSkipDrive is a technology company that solves complex transportation challenges where there is a heightened need for safety, equity, and care. They have a people-first, supportive culture that helps support employee work-life balance. Some benefits that back it up include flexible time off, a company-wide weeklong closure at the end of the year, remote and hybrid work options, and more.
Best Large Tech Companies For Work-Life Balance
Image source: Crain's Detroit
Despite what you might think, Google is a great company for work-life balance. Its Midwest teams (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Cincinnati, Madison) enjoy a laid-back, supportive culture plus the great benefits Google offers. Their generous paid time off includes time vacation, bereavement, jury duty, sick leave, parental leave, disability, and holidays. They offer hybrid work with four “work from anywhere” weeks per year. Other benefits that keep Googlers balanced and healthy is access to mental health resources and unique benefits like menopause support. And of course their offices are beautiful, but they also help employees recharge and promote wellness with fitness centers, massage programs and more.
Shopify
At Shopify, it’s firmly believed that you don’t need to work long hours to be successful. They also believe you can do your work anywhere, and should be able to do it where you work best. Shopify employees report that managers encourage employees to really use their vacation and personal time. This support and flexibility make it a great company for work-life balance.
Image source: Workday
Workday
Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, helping customers adapt and thrive in a changing world. The company makes people their priority, celebrating individuality and providing the support employees need to bring their best selves to work. Workday’s “Flex Work” policy combines the best of both worlds: in-person time and remote work, allowing teams to deepen connections, maintain a strong community, and do their best work. Flexible time off, mental health resources, global well-being days, and more all help Workday employees achieve a great work-life harmony.
Target
Retail and work-life balance? Yeah, it’s possible at Target. Headquartered in the Twin Cities, Target has an in-house tech team that experiences great work-life balance. The team values well-being and encourages a healthy work-life balance through family-centric benefits, ample time off, and remote flexibility. Additionally, Target offers access to a self-paced cognitive based therapy program available through Team Member Life Resources, at no cost, to cover concerns such as anxiety, sleep and substance misuse.
Image source: Chime LinkedIn
Chime
Chime is a remote-first fintech company, on a mission to make financial peace of mind a reality for millions of everyday people. Chime has been recognized as a top company for work-life balance and has tons of great benefits and the culture to back it up. Chime partners with Modern Health to help employees navigate mental wellbeing, and they offer monthly “Take Care of Yourself Days” and encourage time off when you need it.
Nationwide Insurance
Headquartered in Columbus, Nationwide Insurance’s in-house tech team is a great place to build your tech career. They have a culture of innovation, care, inclusion, and fun. The company offers a variety of time-off programs to help you balance work and life. “Your Time,” which is awarded immediately on your hire date and then quarterly afterwards, provides paid time off for vacation, personal and sick time. New hires get a minimum of 18 days off each year. In addition, Nationwide offers “LifeTime” which can be used in increments of as small as 2 hours as needed when life happens. “Unity Day” is an additional 8 hours of PTO on a day of your choosing to celebrate and reflect on what’s meaningful to you. The company also offers many other types of leave for funerals, foster care, jury duty, and parental leave.
Image source: Headway LinkedIn
Headway
Headway is building a new mental healthcare system, rewired for access and affordability. Committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive company, Headway offers a work environment that empowers employees to be happy and healthy. A few ways they do this is through remote flexibility, unlimited PTO, a company-wide break Holiday Break, therapy reimbursements and more.
NetJets
NetJets is a growing private airline in Columbus, Ohio. NetJets promotes work-life balance and self-care by providing a variety of events and learning opportunities related to wellness. Some examples include competitive challenges, educational seminars, on-site farmers market visits, massage therapy, group fitness classes, discounted gym memberships, and free flu shots.
About Boon
Boon is a personalized coaching platform that transforms teams both personally and professionally. By sitting at the intersection between mental well-being and professional growth, Boon is changing how businesses take care of employees. We love the work Boon does (like their new podcast!) and have partnered with them for many episodes of Finding Balance, and Boon did not have editorial influence over the content of this article.
