In Pursuit of a Greater Work-Life Balance for Families

There was a time when corporate culture and the concept of work-life balance seemingly stood directly opposed to each other, particularly for women with ambitions of having a family. 

However, as opportunities for women in senior management have increased (relatively speaking – gender imbalance is as much of a challenge as it always has been) so too has the understanding that corporate culture must change to allow its employees to have a life outside of the demands of their professional careers.

These changes have stemmed from a need to ensure women balancing work and family commitments are not disadvantaged in their careers as a result. But, today this issue no longer applies to women alone.  

Many modern couples would like to share duties when it comes to child-raising and care arrangements, so that both partners can continue their professional careers. As such, a growing number of men would also now like to take a more family-orientated approach in their lives – for their own sense of fulfillment, as well as to support their partner.

This puts more pressure on corporate culture to pay greater attention to the work-life balance. Otherwise, talent retention could present a challenge. 

Government measures for balancing work and family

Inge Woudstra, an associate at Ashridge Business School, is the director of W2O Consulting & Training and started the web-portal, Mum & Career for professional working mothers.

She has noted an increased desire among fathers, as well as mothers, to spend more time with their families and explains how professional mothers balancing work and family have already had an impact on company policy.

“There are lots of companies that, over the past ten years, have introduced flexible working policies or work-from-home policies. At the policy level and at the target level, I think a lot has happened,” she says.

Woudstra cites a UK government figure which proudly reports that 80-90% of official requests for flexible working are granted, but then points out that this statistic could be misleading because it does not account for those who feel unable to request this from their employer.

Elsewhere, a recent article in Der Spiegel explored the developing trend of men in Germany now balancing work and family commitments and points to examples of those giving up full-time work, even in a cut-throat industry such as banking, as evidence that corporate culture must become more progressive.

Indeed, government measures in Germany have tried to encourage shared ownership of family duties. Since 2007, the Elternzeit policy has brought the idea of ‘partner months’ into play, where new parents can take a total of 14 months of paid parental leave if that leave is split, rather than the 12 months normally at the mother’s disposal. 

Plus, Germany’s new coalition agreement, signed in 2013, explicitly refers to ‘active fathers’ for the first time in the country’s history and shows its intention to provide better conditions ‘to allow fathers and mothers to share family and professional duties fairly’.

Woudstra thinks this policy stance is quite clever because by offering an incentive, men are encouraged to take up their entitlement, which she says in the UK, they often don’t. She also mentions the case of Sweden, whose own arrangements, including leave ‘reserved’ for both the father and mother, are detailed and compared with the UK here. 

Flexible working can improve employee loyalty

Whoever government measures are primarily aimed at, companies too must play their part in helping both men and women to achieve a work-life balance that works for them and thus far, research indicates that it is in companies’ interests to do so.

“For a lot of parents, when you’re unhappy with the work-life balance, you’re unhappy with your employer, so productivity goes down,” says Woudstra before adding that if parents can find a solution that works for them, the employer sees the results in their motivation and loyalty to the company.

“So far, in the UK, all the numbers show that women that get flexible work are more engaged, work harder and are more committed,” says Woudstra.

Trust is also a key issue here she argues – a term in vogue among employers right now. If a company is liked and valued by their employee then they will be less likely to want to leave and therein, flexible work has also been linked to a strong decrease in staff turnover.

On the whole, research highlighting the benefits of flexible working is plentiful, and Woudstra confirms that companies are aware of its results, arguing that a bigger concern lies in its implementation.  

Implementing flexible working

In this sense, flexible working is easier to achieve in an industry with a pre-existing history of using it effectively or that tends to attract a larger proportion of women – for instance, in the non-profit industry. Within a company successful implementation can also vary depending on your role, sometimes even coming down to an individual manager and whether or not they believe it can work. Elsewhere, industries that can set measurable targets find it easier to bring in flexible working policies.

“As soon as you have more clear and transparent targets, being there becomes less of an issue,” says Woudstra, explaining that this has allowed the finance sector to improve its showing regarding the work-life balance.

But, in other industries, the term ‘flexible working’ is enough to make employers suspicious that it only benefits employees, meaning new ways of getting employers on board have to be developed that highlight business benefits instead. For example, how sharing workspaces or ‘hot-desking’ can cut costs – however the principal remains largely the same.

“Some of the larger IT companies, consultancies and law firms are talking about ‘agile working’ and ‘smart working’, just because it seems to be a more accepted word in their company,” says Woudstra.

Is corporate culture changing for the better?

Fundamentally, to incorporate flexible working into corporate culture requires moving past the assumption that office-based work can’t be beaten and indeed, more managers need to be won over to this shift in thinking.

Woudstra says that in her work she still meets women who have dropped out of work because balancing work and family seemed impossible, and she talks to men who would like more options to do the same. 

But, generally-speaking much progress has been made in the past decade and the signs are that things will continue to improve. For instance, whereas before the onus was on proving to a manager that shared or flexible working could work before it was implemented, there are now examples where the onus is the other way round – on the manager to prove it doesn’t work before it is discounted.