Work-life Balance

Are you working to live or living to work? If the latter, your work-life balance could be out of kilter. Use the following checklist and questions to help you redress the balance.

DO:

Useful link(s)
Employers for work-life balance
Work-life balance checklist


• try to look at the causes of any imbalance
  Is it that your family needs you more? Or could it be a logistics thing – maybe your journey time is taking too long? Or maybe you’re not the world’s most organised person. Or, hard to admit, could you be out of your depth?
• as a first step, try to set clear boundaries for yourself
  ...and for your family and colleagues. You could stop taking that work home for a start. And stop checking your work emails when you’re logged in from home, or letting your boss think it’s OK to call you after 8pm. If you work partly from home, let your colleagues and family and friends know when you’re available to them. During the working day, don’t keep skipping lunch, and try to factor in some ‘you’ time every week.

Flexible options
Most common forms of flexible working in UK workplaces (from a survey of over 1,000 workers)

• Part-time (53%)
• Late start or early finish (51%)
• Jobshare (28%)
• Home working (20%)
• Term time only working (19%)
• Annualised hours (18%)
• Nine-day fortnight (10%)

CIPD

• find the best flexible working solution for you
  Flexible working is now accepted as a constructive solution to work-life balance issues. There are numerous ‘flexible’ options available, so to pinpoint which is best for you, ask yourself: are you really only looking for a little leeway either end of the day (in which case flexible full-time could suit); or are you someone who prefers your own company and who achieves far more away from the office (teleworking may be for you); or is what you need the flexibility to be available for your children at certain times of the year? (term-time or annualised hours contract); or are you really at breaking point (in which case a career break or sabbatical may be what you need first)
• know your rights
  There’s a lot of ‘family-friendly’ legislation in place now to encourage employers to embrace more work-life balance in the workplace. True, most of it is geared towards parents of young or disabled children, and has now been extended to cover ‘carer’ employees, ie those who have a dependent relative at home. For these two groups of employees, employers are now legally obliged to consider requests for flexible working (but this doesn’t mean they have to grant the request).
• look for an employer with flexible working practices
  For example, watch out for the ‘Workwise Quality Mark’, a new recognition stamp just launched in 2007 that will be given to employers who introduce ‘smarter working practices’ such as non-standard hours, homeworking etc.

DON’T:

Not so balanced for the business?
Under The Employment Act 2002 although some parents and carers have the right to request to work flexibly, the employer may refuse the request if, for example:

• they’ll have to pay additional costs
• It means they won’t be able to meet customer demand
• they can’t reorganise the work among existing staff
• it means the quality of work will be affected
• they don’t have enough work for you during the periods you are proposing

flexibility.co.uk

• assume you’re alone
  A desire for greater work-life balance is not the preserve of people who are further along in their career. More and more graduates, for instance, say that work-life balance is one of the key criteria they use when choosing a potential employer. This means that, if employers want to be seen as an ‘employer of choice’, and if they want to attract and keep top talent, they will increasingly have to offer work options that support what potential employees want – more work-life balance.
• make it all about your needs; make it about the business benefits too
  If part of your work-life balance plan is to establish some sort of formal flexible working, then you’ll obviously need to pitch this idea to your employer. When you do, make sure you point out how it will help the business – e.g. improving productivity, boosting employee retention and employer brand – and be sure to prove that it will not damage the business, which is the employer’s biggest concern.
• under-estimate the impact it may have on your career
  This is the potential downside that few commentators mention. At present, the UK is still something of a long hours culture, and so the less time you spend in the workplace, the less likely you are to rise to the top. Worse still, if and when you do rise to the top, you may have to change or even give up your work-life balance patterns – at senior management level, flexible working practices are the exception, not the rule.
• be afraid to ask
  Even if the employer’s answer is ‘no’, they are now increasingly wary of discrimination claims if they fail to consider employees’ needs and requests adequately (even if you’re not a parent or a carer). It is not in an employer’s interest to have an unwell, unhappy member of staff. You may also consider discussing the matter informally and off the record with your HR department – they’ll be able to explain to you what the company’s stance is on work-life balance and flexible working before you go to your boss.
• ignore the warning signs
  The best monitor you could have for work-life balance is your health – those increasingly frequent days off, tiredness, stress, sleepless nights – read what they are telling you and act sooner rather than later.