How To Get Started

Advice to Employers

Before introducing work-life balance into your organisation, you need to be well prepared.

1. Look at the need

Ask staff about how they see it working.
Involve staff associations and/or trade unions in the development of surveys.
What are the business needs?:
    improved recruitment and retention
    modern employment practices
    increased motivation and loyalty
    better productivity and reduced absenteeism
    reduced stress, producing better focused staff

2. Formulate policies

Consult widely
Test a new idea against your criteria and against what staff say. Will it:
    attract new employees
    help retain staff
    build diversity - in skills and personnel
    balance staffing levels more effectively
    improve morale
    reduce sickness and absenteeism
    enhance working relationships between colleagues
    involve reorganising responsibilities
    require changes in supervision and management
Produce a strategy.
Put the procedures for implementation and monitoring in writing.

3. Spread the word

Get management on board:
To deliver, all levels of managers must appreciate the benefits. Educate train, and encourage them. Explore ways of broadening understanding. Anything from posting notices to producing newsletters and leaflets, running seminars, workshops and role play sessions.

4. Run a pilot or trial period and evaluate it

5. Amend and improve if necessary, and extend the programme to the whole organisation

6. Follow up:

Monitor and evaluate to check it's working
Get feedback from questionnaires and appraisals
Be prepared to make adjustments
Listen to staff - an open door policy is best
Communication is a two-way process.

Work-life the balance policies may not cost anything. Our solutions will be as varied as our needs. Check out the ways in which different companies and organisations have approached the issue to see if their ideas can work for you.

Further Information can be accessed by clicking www.dti.gov.uk/work-lifebalance Get the Balance Right - Work Life Strategies for Business Success e-mail customercentre@indsoc.co.uk

For details of the Legal Framework click here or visit the Employment Relations Directorate on the DTI website at www2.dti.gov.uk/er/index.htm

Work-Life Balance Development Pack - Working Families at http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk/ (Specifically for voluntary sector SMEs although adaptable to non voluntary-sector organisations)

Last Updated: 16/01/2008 11:09:06 By Sian Baird Murray