The Work-Life Balance Trust

An independant charity, with no political affiliations

COULD DO BETTER

What needs to be done to improve community work-life-balance in Britain

1. We need an NHS survey to pinpoint the causes of stress. We clearly have a problem that has not been fully diagnosed, and until it is, a cure cannot be strategically planned. The £2 billion spent annually on mending the results of stress and its domino effect - in secondary stress on families - would be better spent on preventing stress.
2. Outdated patriarchal attitudes in the workplace. Only 3% of FTSE Boards are female. No need to explain further.
   
   Next comes outdated patriarchal attitudes at home which are responsible for domestic violence, over 90% of which is performed by men. 1 in 4 British women will experience domestic violence at some time in her life. You can't work well if you've been beaten up the night before, verbally, physically or both.
3. Domestic democracy. Parents are a reproductive team, and need to work as a domestic team to raise their children. It's better to aim for domestic democracy than have an overburdened mother with 2 jobs, and a father who thinks he's a saint if he does the school run once a week.
   
   The best way to organise this is to plan it on paper, a domestic Time and Motion study that consists of jotting down all the jobs, allocating a time to each, and sharing them equally.
4. Workplace changes required are primarily cultural: in particular the long hours culture and the disgraceful 1 in 10 bullying statistic. Remember that everyone in the workplace takes their cues from the top - currently from the boardroom dinosaurs.
5. Equal opportunity and pay legislation has been in place since 1975, but still women are paid 14% less than men doing the same job, and part-time women are paid 43% less than men; for them, nothing has changed in 30 years. And nothing can affect your lack of Work-Life Balance as much as lack of money.
6. Corporate social responsibility should be internal, as well as an external publicity exercise in Being Seen to Care. In theory this is the job of the HR director, but in fact the HR director rarely has much influence at Board level - in fact he or she is rarely a Member of the Board, although he or she is responsible for the firm's human capital.
   
   I suspect that many HR directors feel over-stretched, under informed, and apprehensive, particularly about new legislation: they don't want to be held responsible for any of those stress-related, damages awards. I am concerned that this may become a bottle-neck hold-up to countrywide adoption of flexible systems.
7. Government responsibilities for lack of WLB in Britain. We all understand that time and money are necessary to improve the present situation. I believe that the Labour Government has moved as fast as is possible and prudent. Which brings me to the Chancellor.
   
   There is still a lack of state childcare facilities for 6 out of 7 children and until that figure is 0, what's needed is a tax credit for all parents to cover the entire cost of registered childminders. This isn't only to help a mother get back to earning money. Without childcare, a new mother may feel trapped, isolated, feel out of the adult world and depressed - perhaps clinically so.
   
   We are told by the male-dominated media that 80% of women long to dump their job and stay at home. No doubt 80% of men would say the same thing, if anybody bothered to survey them. Probably only 20% of jobs are fascinating, and a fascinating job can also threaten WLB if you devote too much of your life to it.
8. Support for parents is also needed, particularly for one parent families. It is wrongly assumed that men and women have an inborn, perfect knowledge of parenting, budgeting, saving, first-aid, etc. I'm not advocating a nanny state. Just opportunities - for those who want it - to learn to look after their children as well as possible.
9. Support for carers is also necessary. There are 6 million carers, 2 million of whom are men - sometimes a closet carer who doesn't want anyone to know that he's doing the cissy job of looking after his incontinent father. Carers sometimes have a more difficult job than looking after an infant. This issue should be better publicised, after which carers should be allowed comparable legal rights to parents in the workplace.
10. School-leavers need to be educated to expect work-life balance and to understand the reasons for this and the high knock-on cost of lack of work-life balance.
11. And finally, everyone needs to take personal responsibility for stress management. Everyone needs to develop a life-time skills overview and view adult learning as normal, the zig-zag career as normal. Girton College is working to develop this concept until it is nothing to apologise for, and professionally acceptable - because a job is no longer for life, for anyone - and that can be a good thing, if it encourages an attitude open to new ideas.