Work and life: ways to find a balance

However, this Americanised scenario is beginning to have an adverse effect on employee attitudes and behaviour. In a recent Institute of Management/UMIST Quality of Working Life survey of 5,000 British managers (from directors to junior managers), it was found that the changes toward downsizing, outsourcing, delayering and the like led to substantially increased job insecurity, lower morale, the erosion of motivation and, most important of all, a decline in organisational loyalty. Although changes were perceived to have raised profitability and productivity, decision-making was slower and the organisation was deemed to have lost the right mix of human resource skills and experience.

A more worrying feature of this trend was that it showed an increase in working hours, adversly affecting the health and wellbeing of managers and their families. In the 1999 survey, 81 per cent of executives worked more than 40 hours a week; 32 per cent more than 50 hours; and 10 per cent more than 60 hours. A substantial minority of interviewees also working frequently at the weekends.

In addition, whereas 32 per cent of these executives in 1998 felt that their employer expected them to put in these hours, by 1999 this rose to 58 per cent. What is disturbing about this is managers’ perception of the damage inflicted on them and their families: 71 per cent of these executives reported that longer working hours damaged their health; 86 per cent that it adversely affected their relationship with their children; 79 per cent that it damaged their relationship with their partner; and 68 per cent that long hours reduced their productivity. It was also interesting that there was no difference between directors and junior managers in terms of the damage caused - both suffered in equal measure.

Since the Industrial Revolution, few white-collar and professional workers in the UK have experienced high levels of job insecurity. Even blue-collar workers who were laid off in heavy manufacturing industries were frequently re-employed when times got better. Can people cope with permanent job insecurity, without the security and continuity of organisational structures that in the past also provided training, development and careers?

The 1995 European survey by ISR [what is ISR?] of 400 companies representing 8m workers showed a substantial decline in perceived job security from 1985 to 1995 in most European countries. Britain showed the worse decline in employee satisfaction in terms of job security, dropping from 70 per cent who were satisfied (in terms of security) in 1985 down to 48 per cent by 1995, and stabilising at this low level in the 2000 survey.

How will this trend affect employees? Can companies continue to demand commitment from employees to whom they don’t commit? What will a long hours culture do to the two-earner family, which is the majority family in the UK? The economy may be doing well, but levels of job insecurity and dissatisfaction are high and growing. Developing and maintaining a "feel-good" factor at work is not just about profitability. In a civilised society it should be concerned with quality of life, which includes such issues as hours of work, family time, manageable workloads, control over one’s career and a sense of job security.

Some of these work-life balance issues may be tackled by giving people greater control over their working lives - which means more flexible working. There is a variety of working arrangements that can help to meet employee needs and help to minimise the negative concerns of some of the changes in the workplace. In the book Balancing Your Career, Family and Life, seven are identified.

If full-time attendance is essential, companies can consider offering job-share opportunities. The popularity of job-sharing is growing for positions in management and elsewhere, in local authorities, banks, retail chain stores, firms of solicitors and other types of organisations. Employers see advantages in terms of retaining skilled and experienced staff. It is also recognised that working part-time allows people to stay fresh, energetic and creative during the hours worked, and there is evidence of greater productivity among job-sharers.

Voluntary reduced time (V-time) is a system which allows full-time employees to reduce working hours for a specific period, with a corresponding reduction in salary. It differs from the usual concept of part-time work in that it is temporary, with a guaranteed opportunity to return to full-time employment. Usually the schedule remains in force for a designated period, perhaps six months or a year, to allow employees and employers to try the new arrangement with the assurance that the commitment can be renegotiated or ended after this period. Employee benefits are maintained during the period of reduced work, which may be a regular event, such as shorter days or weeks, or as a block of time, perhaps during school holidays.

V-time is a useful strategy for creating opportunities to balance work with other responsibilities and may be used by employees for gaining new skills or responding to a health problem.

Employee opportunities can also be created by the use of sabbaticals, which are increasingly offered by large and small companies alike to staff with a certain level of service. Arrangements are usually made to cover absences by creating an opportunity for a trainee, or reorganising colleagues’ responsibilities to share the work. This provides other employees with the chance to take on more responsibility, which can contribute to personal and career development. Sabbaticals may be used for working with supplier companies to understand their problems, for further education, working in local/national government, to care for sick relatives and so on.

Maternity and paternity leave will not be sufficient leave for all parents - some prefer to spend more time with their infants. Realising that breaks for childcare are usually temporary, some organisations have taken steps to accommodate a longer career break. Re-entry and retainer schemes have been initiated to allow certain employees to interrupt their usual working arrangements for a number of years, after which they can return to work with no loss of seniority.

The employee is usually expected to undertake at least two weeks’ paid relief work for the organisation during each year of absence and is provided with regular information packs and a refresher course for returners. In practice, many participants work for more than two weeks a year during the career break.

The scheme may permit one five-year break or two shorter breaks, each starting from the end of statutory maternity leave. Many women prefer two shorter breaks which enable them to return to work between the births of their children. Ideally, the choice of one long or two short breaks can be left to the employee. Career breaks are open, in principle, to men and women, although in practice they tend to be taken by women. Organisations permitting two short career breaks could encourage the sharing of these between the two parents.

* ensuring participants stay in touch with their work, maintaining confidence and expertise;

* attracting young women with talent and ambition, bnecause they are no longer forced to choose between family and career;

* ensuring investment in training is not lost;

* enabling employment at a further date with a minimum of retraining.

More and more companies are introducing innovative work-life balance programmes. The following two examples are drawn from the UK government booklet, Creating a Work-Life Balance.

One of the most comprehensive programmes among larger companies is the Lloyds TSB work options scheme. Launched by the bank in early 1999, the programme is open to 78,000 employees in the UK and abroad. Individual employees negotiate the work/life balance that suits them and their work. The individual initiates the request, but has to provide a business case and details of how the flexible arrangement would work in practice. It can be any of the above arrangements from part-time work. The proposal is then discussed and refined with the line manager.

The scheme has a wide range of options and "as long as there is no negative impact on the business, the request is likely to be approved by the line manager", according to the government report. Staff surveys show a positive response to the scheme. Around 95 per cent of applications are approved and nearly one in five male employees has taken advantage of the programme.

Elsewhere, Dutton Engineering manufactures stainless steel and mild steel enclosures for electronics, and employs about 50 employees. It has introduced an annualised hours contract of 1,770 hours a year: staff can work to customer demand, and, when this is slack, take time off. Managers refer to "quality hours"; when a customer has immediate needs these are fulfilled and when employees are not needed they can go home. Staff use computers to keep in touch and are encouraged during slack periods to spend time with families and pursue outside interests.

The social anthropologist Studs Terkel once wrote: "Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday to Friday sort of dying." As we enter a new century, employers should reflect on where they are going and what that might mean for employees and society. In short, they should try to live up to their often espoused but rarely implemented belief: people are the most valuable asset.