The International Journal of Professional Management - ISSN 20422341
Balancing Work and Life
Volume 3, Issue 1, May 2011
Dr Susanne Tietze
University of Bradford Business School
The 'work-life balance' debate has become a hot topic in public and private discussions. The most prominent recent survey was commissioned by the DfEE and reported a high level of support for this balance, from both employees and employers. A majority of employers recognised that the work-life balance brings benefits to their businesses such as improved commitment from employees. At the same time, many employers also recognise that there were costs in doing so, such as increasing managerial workloads. Employees are said to benefit in terms of increased autonomy, greater flexibility in timing their tasks, being able to fulfil work and domestic commitments as well as becoming more effective due to the lack of commuting as well as to the increase in uninterrupted work time. Thus, it seems that mostly everyone can achieve some benefits through programmes based on such a work-life balance approach. In many regards my own work as a researcher and consultant bears out such findings. However, there seem to be some issues that are usually not part of discussion on the work-life balance and that do not inform mainstream thinking, but that nevertheless figure largely in the individual and organisational lives that I explore. Let me begin with some 'semantic musing'.
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