Work Life Balance

Let’s ban the word ‘absence’

This is the first week in the “A to Z” series explaining WiseWork. It’s all laid out in the “Why WiseWork” guide available on this site. Each week we will be taking a letter of the alphabet and looking at the word it represents.  This week it’s A for Absence. When I chose ‘absence’ as the topic I was aware that introducing remote and flexible working schemes are known to reduce absenteeism. So it seemed obvious that one of the…

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Fathers struggling to work flexibly

A survey of 2,000 working fathers aged between 24 and 40 found that two thirds had asked for a change in their working pattern since the birth of their child. 56% of those that asked to adjust their hours were allowed to do so which means that almost half were refused.  45% of millennial fathers said they had experienced tension from their employers over their wish to balance their work and home priorities. Only 19% of the fathers who requested…

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Older workers will increasingly have caring responsibilities

A report just published by the Office for National Statistics points out that, as the UK population gets older, an increasing number of workers are providing care towards the end of their working life for family members. One in four older female workers, and one in eight older male workers, have caring responsibilities. This points out the need for flexible working arrangements for older employees. This provision is usually associated with parents trying to balance child care with their work…

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Are home workers over working?

A recent survey from health insurance company BHSF adds to the concerns about people’s ability to turn off when working at home. 92 percent of the 897 survey respondents said they reply to emails outside of their normal working hours. Of these, 44 percent respond to emails out of hours every day, and 82 percent responded to out of hours emails at least once a week. But it can’t automatically be assumed that this is a bad thing. The act…

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How do you measure ‘Good Work’?

The RSA and the Carnegie UK Trust have teamed up to produce a report on measuring the quality of work. It follows on from the Taylor Review that recommended that the government should find a way to monitor work quality.  ‘Measuring Good Work’ sets out a roadmap for how that ambition can be achieved. It identifies a series of new questions – from work-life balance to mental health, and from opportunities for progression to feelings of purpose, involvement and control…

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Why are we all stressed out?

Stress has been described as the ‘Health Epidemic of the 21st Century’ by the World Health Organization and its effect on our emotional and physical health can be devastating. In a recent USA study, over 50% of individuals felt that stress negatively impacted work productivity. According to a CIPD survey in the UK, 38% of employees are under excessive pressure at least once a week and almost a third say they come home exhausted either often or always. Increased levels of…

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Blurring boundaries between home and work

A detailed report, “Working anytime, anywhere: The effects on the world of work” has recently been published jointly by Eurofound and the ILO. It studies home-based and mobile workers in ten European countries and five others. The researchers concluded that the incidence of home/mobile working varies substantially, from 2% to 40% of employees, depending on the country, occupation and sector. They point out the advantages of mobile working, both for individuals and organisations, such as improved productivity and better work-life…

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The ‘fatherhood penalty’

Following straight after the news about men working part time comes a report showing fathers are seeking more flexible employment. The “Modern Families Index 2017” report has just been published by Working Families. In this they point to a ‘flexibility gap’. Almost half of parents are not comfortable raising the issue of workload and hours with their employer. They identified  flexible working as a key way of getting a better balance, but many felt that they could not make use of…

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Long hours mean low productivity

The UK remains consistently near the top of the working hours league and well down the productivity table.  Maybe there is a connection? A recent survey from Morgan McKinley showed that 84% of respondents work beyond their contracted hours. And it’s not just the odd extra hour. 27% work between 6 and 9 hours more per week and a further 31% work 10 hours or more over their official working time. The survey disproves the theory that these are all…

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