 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Introduction
Key Findings
Results
Discussion
Work Life Study - Introduction
It is one of the harsh realities of modern life that most of us are working harder than ever, especially so in the UK, where employees endure by far the longest working week in comparison to other European countries. On average we spend 43.9 hours at work, tendency rising. This in turn results in an over-stretched work force leading to an estimated 40 million work-days per year lost through stress related. Moreover the old psychological contract, where hard work was rewarded with a secure job for life, has all but disappeared since more and more people are on short-term contracts and lack the security of long-term employment.Although traditional work structures seem to be dissolving, this has not necessarily resulted in more flexibility for the workers, as many employers are still reluctant to implement them before employees have 'proved their worth'. Hence our lives are characterised by a pronounced conflict between professional and private lives, since ever-longer working hours seem to leave us with less and less time for our interests, family and leisure time in general.
Nevertheless most of us aspire to have our work and personal sphere 'in sync' and balance has become the buzzword for the 90's generation. Thus in an ideal world, most people would like their output assessed by the results they achieve at work and not by the hours they spend slaving away at their desk, which in turn would leave them free to pursue their personal interests outside work. However only few employers have latched onto this and turned it into an advantage.
It is at this point where a key role for Occupational Psychology develops, not only with the assessment of the structure and implementation of flexible work models but also with the thorough study of factors underlying the Work/Life Balance. The study of work and family life is a relatively recent field, with only few studies having touched on how the respective effects of work and home life interact although early papers in the 1970s indicated the advantages of alternative work models.
A recent paper defined workplace flexibility as "the attention to the whole of the employee's life" and called for thorough investigation into a good fit between people's private and work roles. Moreover, it put forward the argument that helping to manage employee's Work/Life conflicts actually increases "psychological availability for work". Their conclusion is the concept of the "learning organisation", where more flexibly work arrangements will benefit the employer through more efficient recruitment, decrease in both staff turnover and absenteeism and last but not least an improved corporate image.
A large scale UK-based study since has found that managers feel to be working unjustifiably long hours and to be pushing their staff too hard. Only a relatively small percentage felt reasonably sure that they have achieved a balance in their lives and the majority indicated their preference for more flexible working hours. Nearly half perceived increased difficulties in balancing their work and personal life and well over half said pressure to perform at work left them less and less time for their personal life, making them feel that they are missing out. Although their findings were thorough and detailed, the analysis of their data was solely descriptive and no attempts were made to analyse any traits underlying the Work/Life Balance, which is where the present study 'picks it up'. A questionnaire was designed for the purpose of this study in order to test two predictions:
- that there would be two distinct factors underlying the Work/Life Balance, one related to the general status quo of the work place and the other one to attitudes held by the individual
- that these factors would correlate with other variables, such as commitment, gender or age