CIPD - Work-life balance

Health, safety and well-being

Revised April 2008

This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:

explains why the work-life balance issue is important for employers
considers the business case
looks at what employers can do to facilitate a better work-life balance
includes the CIPD viewpoint.

What is work-life balance?

In his book Managing work-life balance¹ David Clutterbuck defines work-life balance as:

being aware of different demands on time and energy
having the ability to make choices in the allocation of time and energy
knowing what values to apply to choices
making choices.

Why should employers be interested?

The world of work has changed - in the 24-hour, 7-day society, customers expect service at times that suit them. More and more people have to juggle responsibilities at home and in the workplace. And when employees are asked about work, the two concerns that emerge most frequently from the CIPD surveys on employee attitudes² are long hours and work intensity.

Findings show that three out of four people say they are working very hard; many say they are working as hard as they can and could not imagine being able to work any harder. These factors help explain the increased interest being shown in the issue of work-life balance as many people find that work demands get in the way of their non-work commitments.

The surveys also show that one in five people, including many managerial and professional workers, take work home almost every day. Technology has enabled many to be continuously accessible, but at what cost? One in three partners of people who typically work more than 48 hours a week feel that this has had a negative effect on personal relationships. Despite this overlap between home and work, only 33% of workers say their employer has any family-friendly practices or personal support services in place. For more information on working hours see our factsheet on hours of work in the UK.

View our factsheet on Working hours in the UK

Who benefits?

Much of the discussion of work-life balance has focused on the ‘family-friendly aspect’ of childcare, and the problems faced by people with babies, toddlers and school age children - see our factsheet on maternity, paternity and adoption for more information).

View our factsheet on Maternity, paternity and adoption rights

But placing most of the emphasis on people with young children is too narrow a focus and can alienate some employees as it is not only children who are dependent on others. In the UK, several million people already act as carers for elderly or disabled friends or members of their family. And employees with no dependants may have commitments within the community, or they may want time to travel, study or engage in leisure activities. There is much documented on the attempts to categorise employee needs according to what broad groups they belong to, such as baby boomer, Generation X, Generation Y or the PC generation.

Work-life balance is not just for women. Many men stand to benefit in their roles as fathers, partners or dependants. Society also benefits since stronger and more stable families provide good adult role models, fewer broken relationships and a reduction in crime and other anti-social behaviour. So everybody stands to benefit from policies to improve employees' work-life balance.

What is the business case?

There are benefits to business when introducing policies to underpin work-life balance issues:

higher productivity and competitiveness
increased flexibility and customer service, for example to cover for absence and holidays
raised morale, motivation, commitment and engagement
reduced absenteeism
improved recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce
wanting to become an ‘employer of choice’
meeting legal requirements.

Employers may incur additional costs in adopting policies to support work-life balance, including increased managerial workloads. Such costs are however generally outweighed by the gains in achieving strategic objectives. The biggest obstacle to implementing good practice is in many cases the difficulty of persuading individual line managers to accept more flexible working arrangements. This resistance is often based on assumptions about the likely problems that flexibility will cause that turn out to be unfounded.

What are employers doing to help improve work-life balance?

There is no 'one size fits all' pattern of work-life balance practices. It is important for employers to offer practices that appeal to all employees. The following is not an exhaustive list but indicates the kind of practices that employers might want to consider adopting, perhaps as part of a flexible 'menu' of benefits.

Offering more flexible work patterns

In the CIPD survey Flexible working and paternity leave, part-time working was the most common option of flexible working offered by organisations. The table below, taken from that survey, details the popularity of other options.

		Gender
	Total %	Male %	Female %
Base: All full/part-time workers	(1,193)	(591)	(602)
Working part-time	53	38	71
Variable working hours (coming in/leaving late or early)	51	49	52
Job sharing	28	23	34
Working from home	20	21	20
Term-time-only working	19	14	26
Annualised hours	18	17	18
Nine-day fortnight	10	10	10
Other	3	2	5
Don't know	1	1	1
None	19	26	12

See the full survey results

But there is often a gap between the offering and take-up of flexible working practices so consideration should be given to career development issues that concern employees.

Offering extended leave and other time off arrangements

Although periods of extended leave, whether paid or unpaid, are neither appropriate for nor sought by large numbers of employees, they can be beneficial in particular circumstances. Recent legislation has increased employees' entitlements to request flexible working, maternity and paternity leave, parental leave, adoption leave, and leave for domestic emergencies - see below.

Other forms of leave which employers may choose to offer include:

career breaks for carers
sabbaticals
study leave
secondments, typically within a career development programme but also as a community support activity. For more details see our factsheet on secondments.
View our factsheet on Secondment.

Increasing levels of support

As well as flexible working practices and additional leave, employers can offer extra support, for example through:

employee assistance programmes
financial services eg subsidised insurance or loans
loans or allowances to help pay for childcare
workplace facilities such as crèches or medical centres
domestic partner benefits - this is particularly popular in the USA.

Encouraging ‘wellness’ to improve health

If employees are encouraged to protect their health, this will enable them to deal more effectively with unavoidable stresses at work. Organisations can help by offering:

individual development plans and regular appraisals to provide an opportunity to review work-life balance on a regular basis
information and guidance on health issues
health screening
subsidised private healthcare
on-site exercise facilities or subsidised access to gyms, etc.

More information on health issues can be found in our factsheets on mental health, stress and occupational health.

What does the law require of employers?

The legal provisions governing work-life balance, much of them driven by EU directives, were significantly extended in April 2003.

In 2004, the Government published a ten-year strategy for childcare, including proposals to extend the existing statutory provisions on maternity and paternity leave: these provisions have resulted in the Work and Families Act 2006 much of which became effective from April 2007 onwards.

The existing provisions include:

Annual leave. All employees are currently entitled to a minimum of 24 days paid annual holiday, rising to 28 days on 1 April 2009. Bank holidays can be counted towards this entitlement.
Working time. The working week is limited to 48 hours, averaged over 17 weeks, for employees who have not ‘opted out’. The Working Time Regulations also provide for minimum rest periods and make special provision for night work.
Parental leave. There is a right to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave for men and women at any time up to the child’s fifth birthday. This must be taken in blocks or multiples of one week, with 21 days notice given to the employer.
Time off for dependant care. The right to take unpaid time off to deal with family emergencies (eg concerning an elderly parent, partner, child or other person living as part of the family).
Maternity leave. All women are entitled to 26 weeks maternity leave, plus an extra 26 weeks additional maternity leave, making 52 weeks in total.
Paternity leave. Fathers are entitled to 2 weeks paid paternity leave, which can be taken as a single block of one or two weeks within the 56 days following the child's birth.
Adoption leave. Employees adopting a child are entitled to 26 weeks ordinary adoption leave and 26 weeks additional adoption leave. Only one parent may take adoption leave: if they qualify, the other parent may take paternity leave.
Right to request flexible working. Employees with children under age 6 (under age 18 if disabled) and those with caring responsibilities for adults including those with elderly or disabled relatives can request a change to their working arrangements, for example, in their hours, time or place of work. The employer can refuse such a request on specified business grounds but must follow a detailed procedure.
Part-time work. Part-timers are entitled to the same hourly rate of pay and the same entitlements to annual leave and maternity/parental leave as full-timers but on a pro rata basis. Part-timers must also have the same entitlement to contractual sick pay and no less favourable treatment in access to training.
Detriment. An employer cannot subject an employee to a detriment because they attempted to exercise their rights to work flexibly or take maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave. Employees who suffer unfair treatment at work for these reasons may make a separate complaint to an employment tribunal as well as any discrimination or constructive unfair dismissal claim.

The forthcoming provisions include further changes to maternity, paternity and adotption leave: extending the 39 weeks statutory maternity pay to 52 weeks, similar changes for adoption leave, and provisions for additional paternity leave in the 12 months following the birth or adoption of a child. The father figure (that is the child's father or the mother's partner with parental responsibilities) will qualify for additional paternity pay if the mother returns to work before her SMP, MA or SAP period expires.

CIPD members can find out more about the current and forthcoming legal position in these areas in our FAQs on Bank holidays, Maternity, paternity and adoption leave and pay, Flexible working, parental rights and family friendly provisions, Part-time work and the Working Time Regulations, as well as in our Recent developments section, all in the Employment Law at Work area of the website.

Go to the Employment Law at Work

But an effective work-life balance strategy is not simply about complying with the law. It is about finding out about employees’ needs and priorities and considering how they can be met in ways that are consistent with the needs of the business. Employers are increasingly concerned to protect their reputation and ‘employer brand’. Work-life balance policies are an important way for employers to identify their commitment to quality of life and social responsibility.

What should employers do next?

Successful action to develop a successful work-life strategy is as much about the process of making changes as about the changes themselves. An action plan should include the following elements:

Identify business need - so as to demonstrate to business colleagues how having a work-life strategy will benefit both the business and the workforce as a whole.
Adapt policies to match operational needs - by looking at both employee and business priorities and considering eg impact on customers, back-up arrangements to cover absence and training needs. Don't simply copy-cat what other employers are doing.
Include measures for performance - based on outcomes and results, not on just presence in the office alone.
Develop clear guidelines - as a basis for fair treatment and to help promote work-life balance policies to engage with line managers to gain commitment.
Lead from the top – identify a senior management champion and/or senior management role models who are using work-life balance benefits.
Communicate plans using a wide variety of mediums to involve employees.
Monitor progress and draw lessons from experience – even piloting the practices in a section or division if necessary.

CIPD viewpoint

Work-life balance is the area of people management where employers’ dual desires for a productive organisation and highly motivated workforce, and the Government’s twin policy goals for a high-value-added, high-employment economy and a just and fair society come face to face.

Often this is portrayed as a conflict of forces: between employers battling to enhance performance in the face of malingering employees and onerous and expensive employment legislation; and potential employees struggling to find working arrangements to suit their personal commitments, while those in employment suffer from overwork, excessive hours and stress. But CIPD research shows that these can be powerful complementary rather than conflicting forces. Employees with flexible working patterns are more engaged than others. High performing organisations give high priority to people management and employ a range of policies to engage and empower their workforce, including work discretion and autonomy, high employee involvement and flexible working arrangements.

Flexible working policies and other work-life balance practices are now becoming the norm in our workplaces, spreading out from larger organisations and the public sector. The key issue is how to implement and operate those policies in practice, to create a positive and supportive culture, and to deliver the potential benefits they offer, both in terms of competitive performance and employee well-being.

Useful contacts

References

CLUTTERBUCK, David. (2003) Managing work-life balance: a guide for HR in achieving organisational and individual change. London: CIPD.
Most recent titles include Living to work? and Work, parenting and careers. All CIPD surveys are available at http://www.cipd.co.uk/surveys

Work-life balance