Establishing boundaries at work is the first step to career success

For anyone who could use a little more balance between work and life, consider changing your job entirely.

Work environments, especially start-ups and industry leaders, are becoming attractive for their flexible workplaces and shift away from the 9-to-5 structure, according to Kathryn Minshew and Alex Cavoulacos, co-founders of the Muse and co-authors of “The New Rules of Work,” who stopped into Salon for a recent Salon Talks conversation.

For some this is good, however, boundaries separating work and life off-the-clock become imperative for creating a balance. “Finding those boundaries is going to be one of the next big challenges for individuals,” Minshew said.

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But what if employees sought out workplaces or locations with a greater emphasis on the work-life balance? It could enable employees to set necessary boundaries with more ease.

Recently, the job search engine Indeed compiled a list of the top 20 companies for work-life balance based on employee ratings:

1. H&R Block
2. Network Capital Funding Corporation
3. In-N-Out Burger
4. HEB
5. Kaiser Permanente
6. Intuit
7. Southwest Airlines
8. NIKE
9. Century 21
10. Chick-fil-A
11. Capital One
12. Spirit Halloween Superstore
13. Cisco
14. Pfizer Inc.
15. Honey Baked Ham
16. American Express
17. Raytheon
18. Trader Joe's
19. Starbucks
20. Wegmans

Relocating could also be helpful in achieving a better work-life balance. Last year, Zippia, an online career resource, compiled a list of the 10 best cities for a work-life balance. Their list was based on various sources such as American Community Survey and Yelp. “We then captured the above data for each of the 100 biggest cities in America. Next, we ranked each place from one to 100 for each criteria, with one being the best in any given category,” Zippa reported. The categories included commute time, hours worked per week, size of household (with larger being better), unemployment rate, poverty rate and things to do per capita.

The top 10 list for the cities in America with the best work-life balance are:

1. San Diego, CA
2. Honolulu, HI
3. Omaha, NE
4. San Jose, CA
5. Lincoln, NE
6. Albuquerque, NM
7. Anchorage, AK
8. Oklahoma City, OK (tie)
9. San Antonio, TX (tie)
10. Virginia Beach, VA

In an era when it’s become increasingly important to set boundaries between work and life, the most important decision you make in your career could be looking at the big picture.

Watch the full Salon Talks interview with The Muse co-founders for more.