Balancing Act!
Q: Often, when one of my teams has put in long hours to meet a deadline, I give them money to go and spend at the pub so they can relax together. I thought I was being pretty generous and yet one of the most common reasons people give for leaving my practice is to “improve their work/life balance” – don’t they realise we have work to get out and a business to run? What more do they want?
A: So much has been written about work/life balance over the past few years, it has become something of a cliché and yet remains an extremely valid goal.
From a legal point of view, this issue touches on the Working Time Directive, Health and Safety regulations and in some cases the DDA. You will be aware that employees should not work more than 48 hours per week. Whilst this is averaged out over 17 weeks, and so is not quite as restrictive as it may sound, the UK has become the focus of EU eyes because of the various canny get-outs that UK businesses are using – blanket opt-out clauses being one. This practice is currently under review.
Employers also have a duty of care under health and safety regulations to provide a healthy working environment, including the prevention of stress-related ill health. So if you are running your staff into the ground on a regular basis, you may find yourself the subject of a constructive dismissal claim on this basis. Stress may also be a disability as defined under the Disability Discrimination Act and so you need to be conscious of those implications as well.
Hours worked in the UK are the longest in Europe, with no consequent advantage in output. It is notable that surveys have shown that an individual’s productivity reduces substantially the longer they work – even if your staff work late they don’t work as effectively. It is clear that working long hours has various negative effects – exhaustion, lack of focus, short temper, irritation, ill health, not to mention poor quality work – and these are not going to be improved just by a few drinks at the pub. There may be some merit in the phrase “ a change is as good as a rest”, but simply sitting in a pub swilling alcohol is not a solution that will benefit everyone.
The design industry has long been perceived as a kind of “calling” – people don’t do it just for the money but as a creative outlet. I’ve heard practice leaders say that people work late or long hours for relatively little money because they want to – they know its part of the profession when they join it. That may have been the case when the industry was in its infancy, but to be taken seriously as a profession in today’s fast moving business world original perceptions are being revised/challenged.
There are several ways in which companies can embrace the concept of work/life balance – not least of which is to recognise that each generation is driven by different factors. In a recent survey by the CIPD, 69% of respondents stated that missing out on leisure and hobby time was their biggest regret when working long hours; this might also be the case with employees who have no dependents. Equally, in demographic terms, as the population ages, there are more of us who have elderly parents who rely on us for some level of care. It boils down to an issue of time and where we chose or need to spend it.
An individual that I’ve talked to actually resigned from a leading architectural practice because he didn’t have time to go to the gym! As you turn your minds to the increasingly challenging issue of attracting and retaining the best staff, spare a thought for subsidised gym membership as a retention tool and one means of aiding work/life balance!
July 2004
FX Magazine