The Work/Life Balance

Project
Dr. Lindy Fursman
Department of Labour
21 April 2006
Outline of Presentation:

Background

The Work/Life Balance

Project

Research findings
workplace practices
employee experiences
Background:
established in August
2003
aim is to promote
policies and practices
to help people to
achieve a better
work/life balance
role of government is
to help people
overcome the barriers
that prevent them
from achieving
balanced lives
NZers views about work/life balance

The governments work programme is based on

the views of NZers, gathered in research and in
a public consultation
Public consultation : Barriers to WLB
Income adequacy
Caring responsibilities
Workplace cultures and practices
Research
Employers are keen to implement WLB policies, but
dont currently have the tools to be able to design and
implement appropriate policies
The Work/Life Balance Project

Workplace Project
Aims to assist New Zealand workplaces to develop tailored
work-life balance solutions by gathering and disseminating
practical information and tools

Research
Two national surveys of 1100 employers and 2000 employees
to collect baseline data
SME project

Awareness raising
On-going issues
Paid parental leave
Flexible working arrangements
The Workplace Project

Pilot Project
Assisting a group of private and public sector
organisations to develop and trial work/life balance tools

How were organisations selected?

Skill shortage areas, variety of WLB issues, vulnerable workers
(lower paid, lower skilled), geographical spread
Sectors prioritised included:
Manufacturing; Roading; Hospitality; Retail; Healthcare;
Support services (i.e call centres); Public Sector

Key principles: win-wins, partnership

Process
Issues identified in participant
organisations

Work impacts negatively on:

Getting home on time
Spending time with family
Having enough time for leisure activities
Taking care of personal business

Workplace practices making WLB more difficult:

Stress associated with my job
Difficulty taking time off work to attend to other things
Difficulty taking the leave I need
Number of hours I need to work
Deadlines and schedules
Early solutions
Problem: Distance from town makes it hard to do business/go to
gym etc
Solution: Align company van deliveries to allow staff to ride into
town, using pre-set pick-up and drop-off points

Problem: Lack of ability to change set shift to meet a work/life need

Solution: Allow shift swapping between staff and organised by staff

Problem: Leaving times made unpredictable by late customers

(understood that this is a customer service requirement)
Solutions: a) Enhance the publication of shop opening hours to
customers; b) Consider ways in which customers could be reminded
(say, 15 mins before closing time) that shop will close soon; c)
Research how the change in shift patterns have reduced the need to
work later than shift what implications has the change in shift
hours had?
Research National Surveys of
Employers and Employees

Baseline data:
which WLB initiatives NZ workers have access to, and
how useful these are
which employees have access to WLB initiatives
employer and employee attitudes to WLB initiatives
barriers to achieving work/life balance

1100 Employers (data collected July 2005)

2000 Employees (data collected Oct/Nov 2005)
Which work/life balance arrangements
are available?
Most prevalent WLB initiative was allowing employees to
occasionally vary start and finish times to deal with problems
outside of work

Other commonly available initiatives were:

Using personal sick leave to care for others
Having flexible break provisions
Study leave

Least commonly available option was regularly working from

home

Other least commonly available initiatives were:

Having additional leave in exchange for reduced pay
Selecting own rosters or shifts
Occasionally working from home

Arrangements available vary by size of employer and

industry
Barriers to implementing WLB initiatives

Need to have everyone in the workplace at the

same time (40%)
Too complicated (33%)
Too expensive (17%)

Plus.
Hard to do (manage/organise, control/monitor)
(9%)
Unable to be flexible in our business (7%)
Staff taking advantage/abusing system (6%)
Employee Survey

2000 randomly selected phone interviews; sample weighted

so results are representative of the working population

Questions about:
Rating of current work/life balance
Current working arrangements that help with
work/life balance
Factors that make work/life balance harder
Working arrangements that would help achieve
work/life balance
How did people rate their work/life
balance

35 31
28
% of respondents

30
25 20
20
15 13
10
3 4
5
0
Very poor Poor OK Good Very Excellent
good
Degree of difficulty in getting WLB

40
32 31
% of respondents

30 27

20
9
10

0
No difficulty A little Some difficulty A lot of
difficulty difficulty
Hours worked

49
50
% of respondents

40
30
20 14 14
7 9
10 5
1
0
<10 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+
Hours worked per week
Work/life balance and hours
worked
90 83
80
% of respondents

70
70 60
63 63
56 57
60
50 44 43
40
37 37
40 30
30
17
20
10
0
<10 10-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60+
Hours worked per week

Work/life balance Work/life conflict

Frequency of hours worked in own time

40 37
% of respondents

30

20 19
20
15

9
10

0
Never A few times A few times Once or Most days
a year a month twice a
week
Frequency of working in own time
Work/life balance and working hours
in your own time

80 69
% of respondents

70 64 65
60 55
51 49
50 45
40 35 34 32
30
20
10
0
Never A few A few Once or Most days
times a times a twice a
year month week

Work/life balance Work/life conflict

Work impacts on other parts of life

Work sometimes or often made it difficult to:

get home on time (46%)

enjoy or spend quality time with their family (41%)
spend time with friends (39%)
keep healthy and fit, or play sports (36%)

These impacts were greater for those who

worked variable hours
worked shifts, especially night shifts
worked longer hours
Working arrangements: available and
used

Having access to a phone and messages 93%

Occasional minor variations in start/finish times
79%
Choosing own lunch break 67%
Flexible start/finish times 55%

Most helpful = flexible start and finish times

How helpful are these arrangements?

50
44
40
% of respondents

29
30
22
20

10
4
1
0
None at all A little Some A lot Don't know
Amount of help work arrangements provide
Desired working arrangements

Of those work arrangements that are not available to

employees, for any reason, the work arrangements
employees reported they would like to have were:

Buying or negotiating additional annual leave (more than 3

weeks per year)
Having flexible start and finish times
Choosing how many hours they work
Occasionally working from home
Having extra unpaid leave
Other key findings

30% would like to work less hours than they currently do,
even if it meant earning less money

32% believe that there are negative effects of using

work/life arrangements, with the most commonly
reported effect being being resented by fellow workers.

31% indicated that they might feel uncomfortable

discussing work/life balance issues with their manager,
depending on the issue
Distribution of households with
children (n=2000)

50 45

40

30
22
20 18
14

10

0
Family Family Family Households
household, household, household, with no
youngest youngest youngest children
child under 5 child 5-15 child over 15
Caring responsibilities

60 57

50

40 38

30

20

10 5
3 3
1
0
Care for Care for sick Care for sick or Care for Care for other No care
child/ren partner elderly relative someone with a responsibility
disability
Work/life balance: carers and non-
carers

50 45
40
40
29
30 25
20
20 17
10 12
10
0
Work/life Moderate Moderate Work/life
balance work/life work/life conflict
balance conflict

Carers (n=923) Non-carers (n=1077)

How do carers working arrangements
compare?
Those with caring responsibilities were significantly
more likely to report using particular working
arrangements, including:
Knowing they can go if there is a family emergency
Using their sick/domestic leave to look after family members
Having input, or being able to change their rosters or shifts
Taking school holidays off
Working less than full-time work hours
Choosing how many hours they work

Those with caring responsibilities, especially those

caring for school aged children, were significantly more
likely to say that the arrangements they used helped
a lot in achieving work/life balance
Carers and the impact of work
practices
Households with a youngest child under 5 were
significantly more likely to report certain practices made
it harder to achieve work/life balance:

The number of hours or overtime that you need to work

The expectations and attitudes of your supervisor or manager
The amount and/or frequency of travel required
The ease/difficulty to take the leave needed, or time off to attend
other things
The times meetings and training are scheduled
The starting and finishing times
The amount of notice they get about the hours or overtime they
need to work
Having to take additional work home
Family also has an impact on work

Those with carer responsibilities were significantly more

likely to report that life outside of work sometimes
impacted on their ability to:
Take up development and career opportunities at work
Get to work on time

Those with pre-schoolers were significantly more likely to

report that life outside of work sometimes impacted on
their ability to:
Concentrate when they are at work
Have enough energy to do their job
Take up development and career opportunities at work
Get to work on time
What working arrangements do carers
want?

Carers were significantly more likely to indicate

that of the arrangements they didnt have access
to, the most helpful would be:

Using annual leave in small blocks

Taking school holidays off
Having extra unpaid leave

Those with a youngest child under 5 were the

group of carers who most wanted these
arrangements
Early conclusionsto be continued

Long hours (and when those hours are worked) and

workplace culture remain key barriers to work/life
balance.

The data indicates that carers seem to want more time

away from work, rather than arrangements to do with
work per se, although these are important too...

Need to see, and address, the particular needs of

different groups of carers, and across industry and
occupation, rather than just dealing with work/family
balance (no one-size fits all, even for families).