Bosses to blame as majority fail to find right work/life balance

New research reveals the vast majority are failing to find the right balance between work and their home life, with employers not doing enough to help.

Getting the balance between work and family right is tricky, but new research has found only a third of us are actually managing it.

A survey by the Centre for the Modern Family found that on average working parents spend just 3.5 hours each weekday with their family, compared with over nine hours working, commuting or working at home.

“UK workers are clearly struggling to find a happy equilibrium between work and family life, with working parents feeling the strain most acutely,” says Anita Frew, chair of the Centre for the Modern Family.

Letting the family down

The demands of work mean 26% of us admit to letting family down when it comes to events or planned activities. A third of people say they don’t have time to prepare or eat meals as a family.

Even when we are with our family, we may not be giving them our full attention. Almost a quarter (24%) of us feel that we are always on call for work, even when we are at home.

As a result, more than half of working parents say they feel they are missing out on seeing their children grow up.

Failing at work

The constant pressure on the work/family balance is affecting people’s performance at work too.

Over a quarter of people felt their productivity at work was lower due to stresses over not spending enough time with family, with 24% resenting their employer and feeling unhappy in their job as a result.

Is flexibility the answer?

Those surveyed felt that increased flexibility at work would be the most effective way of helping them balance work and family. Half of people felt that the ability to travel easily to and from work – perhaps outside of the main rush hours – would help, while 51% of working parents wanted to be able to work from home.

“It is clear that employers could be doing more to support their workers to juggle the pressures of work and family,” says Frew.

Unfortunately, the employers who were surveyed as part of the research were not as willing to consider flexible working option. Three in ten employers would not consider offering flexible shift patterns, and less than a third offer the option to work part-time or from home.

“It’s time to rethink traditional ways of working and move towards a more agile approach. This will not only help employees forge a better work family balance, but to improve productivity, returning benefit to employers,” says Frew. “We need to show businesses and Government that the nation’s ‘work family balance’ has see-sawed too far in the direction of work.”

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