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How can you benefit?
Finding a Working Balance: An Employee's Perspective
What kind of benefits can I expect?
Steps to Better Balance: Considering Your Options
Finding a Working Balance: An Employee's Perspective
Work-life balance and flexible working is often the missing ingredient in our workplace. If you're part of today's increasingly demanding market, then you'll probably be familiar with the longer hours, the increased stress and the intense workloads. Yet working flexibly is often a matter of finding solutions for everyday problems: the three days a week you may need to work away from the main office to pick up your kids from school, the reduced hours that would really help you to care for an elderly relative for a short while.
Here at Chwarae Teg, we've worked with employers and individual employees to get the balance right. Sarah Atkinson, of Bridgend County Borough Council's Personal Services team, experienced the benefits of a well implemented remote-working solution:
‘Being home based 2 days a week means I avoid up to a total of 3 hours in travelling time alone. Working at home allows me to better plan my work, in as much as I concentrate on report writing, work with tight deadlines and the necessary reading and research aspects of my particular post. In the long term this supports better outcomes. At the end of a day I feel less stressed as a result of having peace, quiet and time to think.'
Members of our own team at Chwarae Teg have also improved their work-life balance through a range of initiatives. More information can be found in our member's section.
What kind of benefits can I expect?
Employers have made massive improvements over recent years, working with their employees to develop work-life balance policies that suit the needs of everyone involved. As the most important asset to any organisation, you should have access to all the benefits that better work-life balance can bring, including:
- Greater control of your working life
- Less stress
- Better relations with management
- Improved self-esteem, health, concentration and confidence
- Time to deal with problems that arise, whether at home or at work
- Time to strike a balance between life outside and life inside work
- Increased fulfilment at work and at home
To find out more about how work-life balance and flexible working could work for you, see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) sheet.
Steps to Better Balance: Considering Your Options
A good balancing act combines a lot of elements - co-ordination, timing and environment to name just a few. In the same way, there are a wide range of work-life balance options, covering flexible working arrangements and other benefits packages that can be blended to get the balance just right. Here are just a few:
|
How much time we work |
When we work |
|
Full-time |
Flexi-time |
|
Where we work |
Childcare initiatives |
|
Employers Premises
|
Childcare vouchers |
|
Breaks from work |
Other initiatives |
|
Annual leave |
Employee Assistance programme |
By combining the elements of these strategies, packages can be designed to suit specific circumstances. There is no right or wrong way to what works for you. It is important to work with your employer to find the right approach for you and your business.
