Work-life Balance

Literature and Research Review

Executive Summary

Essentially, work-life balance is about helping employees better manage their work and non-
work time. The debate on work-life balance must include employers – encouraging them to
understand and implement more effective work-life balance strategies.

The work-life balance agenda is more inclusive than the previous ‘family-friendly’ agenda which
focused primarily on the needs of working mothers. However, many work-life balance policies
still focus on the care of young children and fail to address the needs of careers of older children
and adults and also those without care responsibilities.

Caring and other domestic responsibilities remains one of the key barriers to economic activity
for women. This leads to inequality between women and men both at home and at work.There is
a huge disparity between statutory paternity and maternity rights. The policy framework
perpetuates the gendered pattern of care and employment. Such disparity reduces parental
choice. The UK’s framework of rights is still among the lowest in Europe.

Rather than rely on legislative stimulus, the UK government work life balance campaign
promotes the ‘business case’. The evidence is positive and support for the idea of work-life
balance is fairly widespread, yet the adoption of the flexible working practices which employees
demand is still fairly low, within organisations, awareness of policies among managers and staff
is poor. Training, and therefore proper understanding of work life balance strategies, is rare.
Policies achieving their Atypical working patterns are promoted as pro-work-life balance.

However, atypical workers are often the most disadvantaged workers. Employees in these jobs
experience low levels of control over their work and time and have less access to work-life
policies. Researchers and policy makers must begin to examine and address this socioeconomic
divide. Men are more likely to have control over their working time, due to the nature of many
occupations which are mostly held by men.

However, many men work long hours and are unlikely to use flexibility to meet non-work
responsibilities. If more equitable and efficient workplaces is a key aim of the work life balance
campaign, then those involved in the campaign need to engage more effectively with debates on
equality and economic efficiency. The way work is organized and rewarded needs to be
fundamentally challenged.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
What is Work-life Balance?

UK Policy Context

Drivers Behind Work-life Balance

Demands of Work

Demands of Life

Employee Demand for Work-life Balance

The Business Case

Recruitment and Retention

Reducing Absenteeism

Enhanced Commitment, Morale and

Productivity

Where’s the evidence?

Work-life Policies in Practice

Introducing Policies

Responsibility for Policies

Organizational Barriers to an Improved Work life Balance

Conclusions

References

Further information
 ACKNOWLEDG
EMENT
Report prepared by Suneela Ejaz Reg # L1F10MSMG0025 from
the STUDENT DEPT OF MANAGEMENTSCIENCES, UNIVERSTY OF CENTRAL
PUNJAB. Additional materials and support provided by PROF.IRFAN SALEEM, UNIVERSTY
OF CENTRAL PUNJAB.
INTRODUCTION:-

Public awareness and understanding of the term ‘work-life balance’ has grown dramatically in
recent years. The high level of interest among employers, consultants, and the media has
generated a healthy business in conferences, websites and guides. It is a growth area in academia
too, encompassing diverse disciplines including economics, social policy, feminism, sociology,
industrial relations, human resource management, health and psychology. This publication brings
together material from these diverse sources to provide an overview of recent research, current
thinking and future debates on the key work-life policy issues.

WHAT IS WORK LIFE BALANE?

“…EMPLOYMENT BASED ON EMERGENT NEW VALUES, WHICH DOES NOT

DISCRIMINATE AGAINST THOSE WITH CARING OR OTHER NON-WORK

RESPONSIBILITIES, AND WHICH PROVIDES AN OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE TO

REALISE THEIR FULL POTENTIAL IN WORK AND NON-WORK DOMAINS.”

Lewis (1996:1)

The Work-Family Challenge: Rethinking Employment

The 1990s saw the emergence of family-friendly policies primarily designed around women’s
experiences in combining care responsibilities with paid employment. However, family-friendly
policies began to attract negative reactions from people without such caring responsibilities. This
backlash was probably exaggerated (Hogarth et al. (2000) found that 43% of employers thought
work-life balance practices unfair to some staff, yet only 26% of employees thought that they
were unfair to people like them) but it did highlight the limitations of the family-friendly agenda.
For the idea that employers benefit from helping employees to lead more balanced lives to gain
acceptance, it had to become more inclusive.

“WORK-LIFE BALANCE ISN’T ONLY ABOUT FAMILIES AND CHILDCARE. NOR IS

IT ABOUT WORKING LESS. IT’S ABOUT WORKING ‘SMART’.ABOUT BEING FRESH

ENOUGH TO GIVE ALL YOU NEED TO BOTH WORK AND HOME, WITHOUT

JEOPARDISING ONE FOR THE OTHER. AND IT’S A NECESSITY FOR EVERYONE,

AT WHATEVER YOU’RE STAGE IN LIFE.”

The Essential Guide to Work-life Balance

Essentially work-life balance is about helping employees better manage their work and non-work
time. A number of policies can facilitate this by: reducing hours (e.g. part-time, job-share);
changing when hours is worked (e.g. compressed working week, flexitime, term-time working);
where hours are worked (e.g. home working);

Or providing periods of paid or unpaid leave (e.g. compassionate leave, parental leave, study
leave, career break). Appropriate balance and the means of getting there depend on individual
and business needs.

UK Policy Context:-
Regulation and Best Practice

European employment policy recognizes the need to change the work-home interface. The equal
opportunities pillar of the European Employment Strategy priorities the reconciling of work and
family life as a tool for achieving greater gender parity.

Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in the UK because of European commitments,
including:

• Equal treatment rights for part-time workers.

• Working Time Directive imposing a maximum working week and minimum rest and leave
periods.
• Parental Leave

• Time off for an emergency involving dependants

• Extended Maternity Leave

Recent developments have seen the introduction of paid paternity leave, the right to request
flexible working for parents of children fewer than 6 and extended maternity rights. These
legislative changes signal a major shift in UK employment policy. British employers have a long
tradition of opposing the regulation of the employment relationship on the basis that it imposes
costs which stifle economic growth and reduce flexibility (CBI 1997), an assertion perhaps
heavier of rhetoric than reality (see Taylor 2002; Bielenski et al.2001).While the present
legislature is moving away from a policy of low employment protection, the pressure towards
minimal regulation remains. Running in parallel with the framework of basic rights is a
government sponsored work-life balance campaign which promotes the business case for helping
employees reduce work-life conflict. It is hoped that by persuading employers that it is in their
best interests to voluntarily adopt the work-life policies which suit the needs of their business
and their employees, the need for legislation is reduced.

“EMPLOYERS WORLD-WIDE IS RECOGNISING OF THEIR OWN ACCORD THAT

IT MAKES GOOD BUSINESS SENSE TO PROVIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEIR

WORKFORCE TO ACHIEVE BETTER WORK-LIFE BALANCES – WITH A PAY-

BACKOF INCREASED MORALE, BETTER EFFECTIVENESS AND PRODUCTIVITY,
ANDTHE ABILITY TO EMBRACE CHANGE.”

Comparative Statutory Rights

A recent review of statutory family leave and pay found the UK is low compared to other
European countries but is more generous than the USA and Australia, who don’t have any
provision comparable to maternity, paternity or parental leave. The UK gives 2 weeks paid
paternity leave, parental leave at threshold levels (13 weeks), very low state support for child
care yet, at 52 weeks, has the longest statutory maternity leave in Europe. This package presents
some problems. The legal basis of maternity leave is to protect the health and safety of new
mothers in the workplace - providing adequate time for rest and recuperation after child birth. In
Denmark for example, maternity leave is only 14 weeks while in Germany it is 8 weeks. The
government’s decision not to enhance parental leave but extend maternity leave reinforces the
gendered division of care responsibilities and reduces parental choice. The disparity between
mother’s and father’s rights may well be tested in the European courts.

Voluntary Employer Provision:-

A national survey conducted for the Department for Education and Employment (Hogarth et al.
2000) found that the principle of work life balance had wide-spread support, as long as it did not
interfere with business needs:

• 62% OF EMPLOYERS AND 80% OF EMPLOYEES AGREED WITH THE

STATEMENT:“EVERYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO BALANCE THEIR WORK AND

HOME LIVES”

• 59% OF EMPLOYERS AND 54% OF EMPLOYEES AGREED THAT EMPLOYEES MUST

NOT EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO CHANGE THEIR WORKING PATTERN IF TO DO SO
WOULD DISRUPT THE BUSINESS Hogarth et al. (2000) Work-Life Balance 2000: Baseline
Study11

Yet this support appeared to be more theoretical than practical. Other than part-time hours
(offered by 80% of employers), flexible working practices were rare:

• 22% HAD EMPLOYEES WORKING FROM HOME (MOSTLY ON AN OCCASIONAL

BASIS),

• JUST OVER 10% HAD FLEXITIME

• COMPRESSED WORKING WEEKS, JOB SHARE AND TERM TIME WORKING WERE
EACH OFFERED BY LESS THAN 5% OF EMPLOYERS

• 20% OFFERED NO FLEXIBLE WORKING AT ALL.

Hogarth et al. (2000)

Work-Life Balance 2000: Baseline study

Leave provision was higher with over 90% of employers providing bereavement leave, 45%
paternity leave, over half some sort of careers leave, and just fewer than 30% career breaks and
study leave. However, practical support with care responsibilities was extremely low. Only 2%
of employers had a workplace crèche, 1% offered subsidized nurseries and 3% helped financially
in other ways (e.g. child care vouchers).

Formal policy provision also tends to be segregated in certain types of organization. An analysis
of the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey found that family-friendly or flexible
working arrangements were more common in larger organizations and in the public sector and
where there were:

• RECOGNISED UNIONS

• HUMAN RESOURCE SPECIALISTS

• GOOD PERFORMANCE

• MANAGERIAL TECHNIQUES TO INCREASE EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT

• MORE INVOLVEMENT OF EMPLOYEES IN DECISION-MAKING

• EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICIES THAT WERE IMPLEMENTED AND MONITORED

• LARGER PROPORTIONS OF WOMEN IN THE WORKFORCE

• A HIGHLY EDUCATED WORKFORCE USING DISCRETION

Dex, S. and Smith, C. (2002)

The nature and pattern of family-friendly employment policies in

Britain
The results of national surveys however, should be treated with caution. They often only cover
what is formally available to employees and cannot capture the effect that policies have on
employees. They also exclude the informal, ad hoc provision often found in small and medium
sized enterprises (SMEs) (Bevan et al.

1999; Dex and Scheibl 2002).Unfortunately there are no disaggregated data for Scottish
employers although research conducted in the Scottish financial services industry by Bond et al.
(2002) found similar patterns of provision. Coverage of work-life policies was more extensive
and formalized in large companies that recognized unions than in those with staff associations or
no representative forum. Flexible working practices designed to meet operational and labor
market needs, such as part-time working, were better established than those designed to help
meet employee work-life demands.
 Drivers Behind

Work-life Balance

One of the major drivers behind the introduction of family-

friendly and work life policies was the increased
participation of women in paid employment. In 1999
17% of UK women of working age devoted their time
exclusively to looking after home and family; in 2001
this figure was 13% representing 600,000 fewer in just
two years (ONS 2002)

DEMAND OF WORK:-
Atypical Working

The work-life balance campaign promotes certain types of atypical working to help employees
combine care responsibilities with paid employment and employers to meet operational needs.
Even with new equal treatment rights, part-time work can be less rewarding than fulltime work.
For example part-timers have less access to occupational pensions because they are
disproportionately concentrated in sectors and workplaces which don’t provide such schemes
(Fagan 2000)

PART-TIME WORKERS, THE MAJORITY OF WHOM ARE WOMEN, HAVE

LESSCONTROL OVER THEIR WORKING TIME AND TEND TO BE OCCUPIED IN
UNSKILLED POSITIONS AND RECEIVE LESS TRAINING AND LOWER PAY.

EFILWC (2001)

For some, atypical working patterns are a positive experience. Purcell et al. (1999) found that
managerial and clerical workers, especially those with scarce expertise, did benefit from working
flexibly. However, for manual and lower skilled workers flexible working meant insecurity and
unpredictability rather than better work-life balance. Unpredictable and unstructured flexibility
involving incursions into family time is more likely to be experienced by low-skilled, part-time,
temporary workers and shift workers.

La Valle et al.’s (2002) study on the effect of atypical working hours on family life found that
working unsociable hours was driven by a15 need to reduce or eliminate child care costs with
parents or other careers taking care responsibilities in shifts. ‘Shift parenting’ could be a positive
experience, sometimes allowing more time with children, but for many it meant a reduction in
the amount of family time spent as a group.

Long Working Hours

The UK has the highest proportion of people working long hours in Europe. The European labor
force survey shows that almost 30% of full-time employees work in excess of 46 hours per week,
compared to an EU average of 12%. In 1984, 2.8 million people were working more than 48
hours a week. By 1998, this had risen to over 4 million people, an increase of over 40% (TUC
2000). The UK also has the greatest dispersion of hours worked by employees in Europe (Fagan

2000). in 1999 the average of total hours worked per person (including part-time workers) was
1720 hours per year. More than, for example, France, Germany and Sweden but less than Spain,
Norway, and the US (Evans et al.2001).

Long working hours are more likely to be experienced by men, especially fathers, while part-
time hours worked predominantly by women have fallen – a strikingly inefficient use of
resources. The Working Time Directive 1998 imposed an upper limit of 48 hours a week but
exemptions and opt-out clauses have seriously mitigated its impact. All employees whose hours
are not or only partly predetermined or measured by their employer are not protected. This
removes all salaried workers from the protection of the regulations even though it is these
employees, especially managers and professionals, who work the longest hours of all

(Hogarth et al. 2000).

It is regular additional hours which are problematic for employees (Kodz et al. 1998). Burch ell
et al. (1999) found that out of 340 employees, half felt that their family life had suffered because
of their working hours. The most commonly cited problems were feeling tired and irritable, not
seeing enough of partners and children and restricting the social life of the family. La Valle et al.
(2002) also found long hours to be associated with lower levels of involvement in children’s
activities and the frequent disruption of family life. Scase and Scales (1998) found that 42% of
fathers working a standard working week talk to their children most days whereas only 26% of
fathers working over 48 hours do the same.16 The health problems for the individual working
long hours are also considerable. As well as being less likely to take regular exercise, people who
continue to work long hours have a greater likelihood of health problems. Even if hours are
reduced, health prospects do not return to the levels of those who have always worked shorter
hours (Scase and Scales 1998).
Work Intensification and Stress

Employees report that the main reason they work long hours is to get the job done (Taylor 2002).
Of the employees surveyed by Burch ell et al. (1999):

• 64% THOUGHT THE SPEED OF THEIR WORK HAD INCREASED

• 80% THOUGHT THE SKILLS REQUIREMENT OF THEIR JOB HAD INCREASED

• 78% THOUGHT THE VARIETY OF TASKS THEY HAD TO PERFORM HAD

INCREASED AND

• 75% THOUGHT THEIR LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY HAD INCREASED

Burch ell et al. (1999)

Job Insecurity and Work Intensification

A number of factors have contributed to this trend. A technological advance, especially the
proliferation of PC use, has increased the volume of work which can be done and thereby raised
expectations of what should be done. The down-sizing and restructuring of the 1990s has also
increased this pressure and heightened feelings of job insecurity. The intensification and
restructuring process may have produced some short-term gains but the long term ill-effects of
stress on individuals and society are considerable. Pressures from managers, colleagues, low
staffing levels and especially high quantities of work are significantly associated with poor
psychological health and tensions at home (Burch ell et al. 1999).
Demands of Life

Combining Care of Children and Paid Employment

One of the major drivers behind the introduction of family-friendly and work-life policies was
the increased participation of women in paid employment. In 1999 17% of UK women of
working age devoted their time exclusively to looking after home and family; in 2001 this figure
was 13% representing 600,000 fewer in just twoYears (ONS 2002).

Women have become increasingly involved in paid employment and men have become more
involved with the care of the family. Time use studies have found that since the 1970s, the
amount of time fathers spend directly interacting with their child has increased overall and risen
steeply since 1985 (Gershuny 2001). Qualitative research conducted by Hatten et al. (2002) for
the Equal Opportunities Commission found that few of the fathers they interviewed took on
equal responsibility for all care-related tasks, but few took a traditional, hands-off approach. The
trend is towards men taking a greater role at home but it is worth noting that the amount of time
spent on paid work and care is not static. In their study of rural communities in Scotland and the
North of England, Mauthner et al. (2001) found that both mothers and fathers increase their
commitment to paid work or caring according to the age of the children, their employment
situation and the needs of the family.

While there is a desire among men, especially younger men, for greater involvement in family
life, fathers time still only accounts for one third of all parental contact (Gershuny 2001) and
their role as provider is still a powerful source of identity (Warin et al. 1999). Women take the
majority of responsibility for the care of children and the home evidenced by the high proportion
of mothers working part-time and the long working hours of fathers. An Australian study (a
country with a similar profile of maternal employment as the UK) found that motherhood adds
more to the overall workload (at home and work) of women than fatherhood ads to the workload
of men (Craig 2002).

The Ageing Population

Scotland’s population is ageing and is set to decline from 5.11 million to under 5 million within
the next twenty years (GROS 2002). As the birth rate falls, the dependency ratio between the
elderly and the working age population increases threatening future economic growth across
Europe (Duncan 2002).Women’s aspirations for social and economic independence are only a
contributory factor in18 declining birth rates. However, the incompatibility of work, or at least
well paid, rewarding work, with childbearing has to be addressed if having babies is to be an
attractive proposition for future generations of young Scots. This is why work-family
reconciliation is prioritized by EU employment policy. The demographic time bomb will also
result in increasing proportions of people with adult-care responsibilities. As the capacity of the
welfare state is reduced, the burden of care (for elders and the chronically sick or disabled) falls
on relatives and friends.Carers Scotland have estimated that Scotland will see a 60% rise in the
number of careers needed by 2037, increasing the chances of someone aged 30-54 being a
career for an adult by 88%.

Research into the current generation of working careers over 50 found that almost half were
combining work with the care of an elderly or disabled relative or friend, a grandchild or their
own child. This informal care was undertaken equally by men and women, full and part-timers
and at all levels of the organization but the level of care provided by women tended to be more
extensive. Stress, tiredness, ill-health and lack of leisure time affected many of these careers and
although they explicitly expressed a desire not to allow their care responsibilities to affect their
work, opportunities for career advancement were affected (Mooney et al. 2002). Recent
developments in the scrapping of the statutory retirement age and improving the flexibility of
both state and occupational pension schemes are to be welcomed. The earnings rule that reduces
the amount of state pension paid to people who work after retirement age and final salary
schemes prevent part-time working in the lead up to retirement. More flexibility is needed, not
only to fight poverty but to help older people manage their care responsibilities.

The Time Squeeze Part of the motivation for the work-life balance campaign is the notion that
people are under increasing pressure of time and have less free time than in the past. However,
research charting changes in time use in northern Europe and North America between the 1960s
and 1990s found relative stability in leisure time. Sullivan and Gershuny (2001) suggest that the
time squeeze may be limited to19 specific groups, for instance, dual earner couples with
dependent children and lone parents. The number of activities engaged in simultaneously has
increased and leisure activities involve greater effort and expenditure, perhaps reassuring in a
perception of greater time pressure.

Work-life Conflict
Given the competing demands of work and life, it is unsurprising that many employees
experience conflict between the two domains. Work-life conflict can affect any employee but
people with care responsibilities are more likely to suffer most because of the greater demands
on their time. Research has tended to find that mothers, particularly those with young children,
are less satisfied with their work-life balance than other groups of workers (Saltztein et al. 2001;
Galinsky and Bond 1996). Feelings of work-life conflict have been associated with, inter alia,
psychological and physical health problems; marital and family relationship problems, increased
sickness absence and decreased life and job satisfaction (Evans and Steptoe 2002; Crouter et al.
2001; Westman 2001; Kossek and Ozeki 1998)an 2001; Kossek and Oze Employee Demand for
Work-life Balance Employees are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the effects of long
working hours, work intensification and work-life conflict. A survey of working time preferences
across Europe found that over half of employees would prefer to work fewer hours in exchange
for lower earnings (EFILWC 2001). Within Britain’s workplaces, satisfaction with working
hours has declined considerably over the last ten years, especially among men. In 1992, 36% of
male senior managers/professionals and 34% of male semi and unskilled manual workers were
satisfied or completely satisfied with their working hours. By 2000 this had dropped to 16% and
14% respectively (Taylor 2002).Hogarth et al. (2000) found high levels of demand for flexible
working practices.20 When asked about their working time preferences:

• 47% WANTED FLEXITIME

• 35% WANTED A COMPRESSED WORKING WEEK

• 26% WANTED TO WORK PART-TIME

• 25% WANTED TERM-TIME WORKING

• 16% WANTED TO JOB-SHARE

Hogarth et al (2000)

Work-Life Balance 2000: Baseline study

Organizations have been slow to respond to this demand. Levels of work-life balance provision
are low and the type of flexibility available is often not in tune with employee needs. The most
popular arrangements among employees, flextime and compressed working week, entail greater
control over working hours but most employers only offered reduced hours: 80% of employers
offer part-time working but only 19% have flextime and less than 5% a compressed working
week (Hogarth et al. 2000). So what can be done to persuade employers to close this gap?
Work-life Policies
In Practice

Policies have the best chance of success if the people

using them, employees and line managers, are fully
involved in their design. Lack of consultation can result
in policies which do not match individuals’ needs or
cannot be used because of operational constraint
Introducing policies

Policies have the best chance of success if the people using them, employees and line managers,
are fully involved in their design. Lack of consultation can result in policies which do not match
individuals’ needs or cannot be used because of operational constraints. Larger organizations are
more likely to have formal work-life provision. These policies are usually developed centrally by
HR specialists with input from higher level business managers and employee representatives.
Managers and the staff on the ground often feel they have little influence in this process.

However, if employees believe that they will not be treated sympathetically by their line
manager, without the legitimacy which a formal entitlement can give, they will find it difficult to
make the request. It also reduces the organization’s ability to take a more strategic view of the
work-life agenda (Casey et al. 1997)

Responsibility for Policies

Responsibility for implementing work-life policies has increasingly been devolved from HR to
line managers. Giving line managers this responsibility means that decisions can be made more
quickly and tailored to suit the needs of the individual and the department while HR staff are
freed up to take on a more strategic role (Sisson and Storey 2000).However, this approach does
require some investment:

“LINE MANAGERS IN GENERAL WITHOUT SUPPORT FROM PERSONNEL

SPECIALISTS ARE UNLIKELY TO ACQUIRE SUFFICIENT COMPETENCE IN PEOPLE

MANAGEMENT SKILLS TO IMPROVE ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS”

Gennard and Kelly (1997)

Several studies report that this investment is not being made. Training is rare, and e-mail and
occasional updates to handbooks is relied upon for communicating these sometimes complex
policies (Bond and Wise 2003). In Kodz et al.’s (2002) research of six organizations considered
to be leading work-life balance employers, managers welcomed the power of decision-making
but felt they had been abandoned with the policies having been given no training or guidelines in
how to operate them. Managers in Yeandle et al.’s (2002) study had also not received training
nor been consulted before being given the additional responsibility. It is therefore not surprising
that line manager and employee awareness of company work-life policies is often patchy. Given
that some of these policies are a legal right, this low awareness is concerning.

Lack of training coupled with poor policy awareness leads to inconsistencies in application both
between and within departments. The tension between being responsive in individual cases and
being seen to treat requests equally can cause problems for managers (Kodz et al.2002; Bond et
al.2002). If an employee feels that their work-life policy request has not been dealt with fairly
there is a tendency to compare their treatment unfavorably with that of other employees. While
HR often provides post-hoc support, these staff relations problems could be greatly reduced
through training.

Many work-life policies only become relevant when personal circumstances change and a
detailed knowledge of every possible company policy is not a realistic or desirable goal.
However, the investment in developing work-life policies is wasted if similar efforts are not
made to effectively communicate the policy message and provide accessible information and
support.

Organizational Barriers to an
Improved Work-life Balance

Resources

Employers perceive the main disadvantage of work-life policies to be the cost and disruption of
dealing with the employee being absent from the workplace, especially if they have specialist
skills (DTI 2000; Forth et al. 1997). Employees doing similar jobs can be easily substituted with
another, increasing flexibility. For example, in the supermarket and banks studied by Yeandle et
al. (2002), frontline employees, who performed generic work, were able to informally swap
shifts without adversely impacting operations. Where employees’ jobs are specialized this is not
always possible. Resource constraints can also reduce flexibility; a problem often experienced by
small businesses though not exclusively. Even in large organizations with substitutable
employees, where cost cutting has led to understaffing, managers can find implementing
company work-life policy extremely difficult (Yeandle et al. 2002; Bond et al. 2002; Kodz et al.
2002). In these circumstances work-life policies can have a negative impact on other staff:

“DUE TO CUTS WE ARE SHORT STAFFED… IF IT’S LEAVE FOR EMERGENCY

CARE THEN WE JUST HAVE TO COPE SOMEHOW, BUT IT DOES INCREASE THE

STRESS ON OTHER MEMBERS OF STAFF.”

Council Manager quoted in Yeardley et al. (2002:14)\

Employed careers and family-friendly employment policies

Job type

The ability to exercise some control over one’s environment can make the environment more
rewarding or less threatening. This is why working practices which increase employee control
can reduce stress and work-life conflict. Galinsky and Stein (1990) found that employees who
have the power to solve work problems were likely to suffer lower stress and felt their job caused
less interference with their life. Thomas and Gangster (1995) found that schedules which gave a
group of nurses more control over their time reduced work life conflict and symptoms of stress.
Absences and intentions to be absent also decrease as control over working time increases.29 In
customer facing jobs (e.g. retail) or where specialist equipment is needed (e.g. factory work), it is
difficult to exercise such control. Policies like flexi time or home working can be more difficult
to operate in such occupations as this call centre manager explains:

“WE HAVE SHIFTS TO FIT OUR OPERATIONAL NEEDS AND, IF SOMEONE IS DUE

TO START ON THE PHONES AT 10,WE REALLY NEED THEM TO BE THERE AT 10”

Call Centre Manager quoted in Bond et al. (2002: 48)

Family-friendly working? Putting policy into practice

Employees in lower status, roles and some part-time workers are more likely to be in low-
control jobs, disproportionately disadvantaging women. Dex and Smith (2002) found that
employees with a greater amount of discretion (often male professional and managerial staff )
were more likely to be offered flexible working arrangements while female dominated
workplaces were less likely to have access to flex time or home working. La Valle et al.’s (2002)
study on the effect of unsocial working hours on family life found similar occupational
differences. Senior and professional employees were more likely to experience predictability and
control over their working hours while those in lower status jobs felt they had no choice in the
hours they worked.

The Politics of Time

Intensified workloads and pressures to perform have made time a valuable commodity. How
employees use this commodity – the quantity and timing of working hours - is crucial to how
they are perceived by the organization:

“… THE NOTION THAT TIME REPRESENTS MONEY, AND HENCE SYMBOLISES

PRODUCTIVITY, COMMITMENT AND PERSONAL VALUE IS WIDESPREAD.”

Lewis (1997:16)

Reduced working patterns are gradually gaining acceptance for lower status jobs but despite
evidence of negative consequences and widespread employee dissatisfaction, organizations
continue to reward long working hours. Employees less willing or able to give their time freely
to work are often not considered suitable for the demands of managerial work.30 Despite modern
management theory, it seems many organizations still reward input rather than output. People
working part-time or flexibly, especially in senior roles, often report having to work harder to
justify their position: a reduction in hours and therefore pay is rarely matched by a
commensurate reduction in workload or expected output. To compound the problems of a long
hours culture, managers are rarely given guidance on how to design part-time jobs. Part-time
workers often have to employ more sophisticated time management techniques and work harder
to complete tasks usually with greater non-work demands on their time. This raises the question:
why do people who work long hours get paid more for working less efficiently? (Lewis 2001;
Epstein et al. 1999)

Long hours are frequently attributed to work intensification but a group of American researchers
have been working with organizations to uncover and resolve the inefficient working practices
which can result in long hours:

“[THE] ATTITUDE THAT THE BEST EMPLOYEE IS THE ONE WHO SPENDS THE

MOST TIME AT WORK HAS HELPED FOSTER THE BELIEF THAT WORK OUTPUT IS

DIRECTLY,AND LINEARLY,RELATED TO THE AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT ON WORK

– AN IDEA WHICH REINFORCES THE NORMS SURROUNDING LONG WORK

HOURS, AND, IN TURN, REINFORCES THE WORK PRACTICES THAT

UNWITTINGLY LEAD TO THE NEED TO SPEND THESE LONG HOURS AT WORK.”

Rapoport et al. (2002:49)

Beyond Work-Family Balance

Research in several leading US organizations has found that by focusing on the way work is
carried out and getting employees to identify the inefficiencies which cause long hours, the
culture can be successfully challenged. An example they provide is of a marketing team which
operated in a continual state of crisis, working through the night to meet deadlines. The output of
this behavior was praised and rewarded but the costs had gone unnoticed: other staff had to put
their work on hold while the team took time off to recover, delaying the next project which set
up the need to work all night, reducing the quality of work and extending completion time
because of tiredness. The researchers helped the team identify and break this cycle.31 It is not
only in professional and managerial spheres where putting in extra hours is viewed favorably.
Dex and Scheibl (2002) found that some smaller firms operated an informal ‘balance sheet’.
Employees built up credit by working longer when needed and cashing it for flexible hours later.
Scottish mothers working in no managerial jobs who did not have access to formal policies felt
they had to build a reputation as a reliable employee who did not take time off for sickness or
allow family commitments to impinge on working time. This increased their chances of their
manager granting time off for a non-work emergency (Backett-Milburn et al. 2001).This ‘give
and take ‘between managers and staff has also been found in organizations with formal policies.
Line managers are more likely to accommodate requests for flexibility, or use their discretion
(for example to grant paid leave) if they feel that employees have or will reciprocate this favors
by ‘helping out’ during busy periods (Bond et al. 2002; Yeandle et al. 2002).This basis for
decision-making is potentially problematic because it disadvantages the people who need these
benefits most: those with dependants, especially sole and multiple caring responsibilities.

Supportive Culture

Having policies in a staff handbook is not sufficient to promote employee work-life balance.
Employees also have to feel that the organization will be supportive of them adjusting their
pattern because of non-work responsibilities. Flexible working patterns are becoming
increasingly common but full-time, permanent employment is still the dominant norm mainly
because men rarely work flexibly or fully utilize leave policies. The impact of this gendered take
up is two-fold. Firstly, people who use flexible working and leave often contradict the time
politics of an organization (see above) and are therefore viewed as marginal (Lewis and Taylor
1996;Hutton Raabe 1996). Secondly, male take-up of work-life policies is perceived as less
legitimate. This Organizational Barriers to an Improved Work-life Balance Resources Employers
perceive the main disadvantage of work-life policies to be the cost and disruption of dealing with
the employee being absent from the workplace, especially if they have specialist skills (DTI
2000; Forth et al. 1997). Employees doing similar jobs can be easily substituted with another,
increasing flexibility. For example, in the supermarket and banks studied by Yeandle et al.
(2002), frontline employees, who performed generic work, were able to informally swap shifts
without adversely impacting operations. Where employees’ jobs are specialized this is not
always possible. Resource constraints can also reduce flexibility; a problem often experienced by
small businesses though not exclusively. Even in large organizations with substitutable
employees, where cost cutting has led to understaffing, managers can find implementing
company work-life policy extremely difficult (Yeandle et al. 2002; Bond et al. 2002; Kodz et al.
2002). In these circumstances work-life policies can have a negative impact on other staff:

“DUE TO CUTS WE ARE SHORT STAFFED… IF IT’S LEAVE FOR EMERGENCY

CARE THEN WE JUST HAVE TO COPE SOMEHOW, BUT IT DOES INCREASE THE

STRESS ON OTHER MEMBERS OF STAFF.”

Council Manager quoted in Yeandle et al. (2002:14)

Employed careers and family-friendly employment policies

Reasons for Using Work-life Policies

An important feature of the current work-life balance debate is that it should be open to all
employees, not just those with child care Responsibilities. In practice, this idea has made little
headway. Despite demographic changes, the care of young children mainly by women remains
the focus for national and company level policy (see 1.2.2).The new right to request flexible
working is only available to parents of children under 6 but people with other responsibilities
could significantly benefit from this right.Yeandle et al. (2002) found parents struggling to care
for teenagers during holidays and after school, as support and services for older children are
particularly poor. Phillips et al. (2002) found that careers of older adults are more likely to try to
cope with their responsibilities on their own using holidays and lieu days rather than seek formal
assistance manager in an investment management firm explains:

IF SOMEONE WANTED TO TAKE [PARENTAL LEAVE] THE COMPANY

WOULD HAVE TO LET THEM ... BUT I THINK THE MAN WHO DID ASK

FOR IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A BRAVE MAN. HE WOULD TAKE QUITE

A LOT OF RIBBING. WE DO STILL HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS.

Manager interviewed in Bond et al. (2002)

Family-friendly working: Putting policy into practice

Managers in female dominated workplaces have reported frustration at the gendered take-up of
work-life policies as it puts pressure on resources which employers of their employees’ male
partners don’t have to bear (Bond et al. 2002; Lewis 2001). Unsupportive cultures reflect and
perpetuate the broader societal belief that the integration of work and family life is an individual,
not a public responsibility (Brannon et al.1997). In comparative research of Europeans, Lewis et
al. (2002) found that the British participants had low expectations of support in their role as
career from either state or employer and thought any support given had to be justified on
business case grounds (mirroring the UK policy approach). It is persuasively argued that
individuals who feel that demanding support or challenging existing practices is not wholly
legitimate, will be over-grateful for any support given and be reluctant to demand further
changes (Lewis and Smithson 2002; Lewis 1997). Kodz et al.’s (2002) research found that
because line managers were always expressing concerns about meeting business needs
employees sensed that their request for flexible working would not be treated sympathetically
and did not ask. Without this internal pressure for chain the status quo perpetuates.

Conclusions

Progress so far

Despite widespread support for the idea of work-life balance, compared to the high level of
employee demand, the provision and uptake of work-life policies is still low. The rhetoric is
inclusive but policies are still often focused on meeting the needs of parents of young children.
The Role of Regulation Given the slow progress of the best practice approach, more legislative
stimulus may be needed to give the work-life balance a stronger foothold in British
organizational life. Formal policies at both organizational and national level are important for
giving legitimacy, reducing the reliance on the relationship between managers and staff.
Constructive engagement with and support for SMEs in developing and implementing the
policies to meet their needs is essential.
Giving Work-life Policies a Chance

Employers assert that voluntary policies are better than legislation because they allow
operational and workforce needs to b e taken into account. But evidence suggests that managers
and employees are rarely consulted, often resulting in policies that are not needed or cannot be
used because of operational constraints. The implementation process is also too frequently left to
chance. Awareness of policies among managers and staff is often poor and training can be rare,
reducing the chances of work-life policies achieving their objectives.

Women and Men

While atypical working such as part-time working and unsocial hours are promoted as a tool for
improving work-life balance, the employee experience is often poor. Low state support for child
care and cultural norms has led women into part-time jobs which are designed primarily to meet
operational needs. Women are therefore more likely to be in lower paid, lower status jobs with
little opportunity for training or advancement however these jobs rarely35 offer the levels of
control and autonomy, essential for operating work-life policies and reducing work-life conflict.
Conversely, men are more likely to have control over their working time but are unlikely to use
this flexibility to meet non-work responsibilities. UK men work the longest hours in Europe and
organizations still reward those who give their time exclusively to work. Women’s employment
situation cannot be improved while this norm dominates. It is important to directly engage in
men’s work-life needs and encourage a more equal distribution of paid employment and care
responsibilities between the sexes. The regulatory regime therefore needs more careful
consideration. The huge disparity between paternity and maternity rights precludes fathers from
being involved in the early years, setting up a gendered pattern of care and employment and
reducing parental choice.

Future Directions
Such data have been used wherever possible but it is clear that more work is needed to build an
informed policy debate in Scotland. Research has focused heavily on the ‘glass ceiling ‘at the
expense of the ‘sticky floor’. It is employees at the lower levels of organizations who experience
the least amount of control over their work and time and have less access to work-life policies.
There is evidence that helping employees more effectively manage their work and non-work
time is good for business but these ‘win-win’ solutions are not achieved by offering atypical
hours which suit the needs of the business. Similarly, granting requests for flexible working
practices without properly designing the new job is unlikely to achieve the best outcome for the
individual or the business. Work-life policies cannot be seen as a perk. To challenge rigid and
inefficient working practices and reduce rising stress levels, the way work is organized and
rewarded has to be fundamentally challenged.
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