Work-life balance sounds like a great idea from the employee's perspective. To an employer, it may be a frightening prospect.

Find out from one of the topic's foremost authorities what it takes to optimize the outcomes of this management approach.

How to Get the Paybaek From Investment in Work-Life Balanee

David Clutterbuck

ompanies and government C have invested vast amounts of time and effort in recent years in policies and initiatives to improve work-life balance. The business case, if sometimes expressed in over-optimistic terms, is broadly sound; the benefits to individuals and the community at large even clearer. Yet the results have been disappointing. While companies point to specific benefits from individual initiatives, the overall impact has generally been muted.

For employees, there is even less to write home about the proportion of people regularly working long hours is still increasing. What has gone wrong? In my
book, Mana^ng the Work-Life Balance,

I try to unravel some of the reasons and to outline practical solutions. The book is the result of trawls through hundreds of publications; interviews with human resource professionals, CEOs, and employees at many levels; and a detailed survey of company practice and

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Figure 1: The Quality Model for Work-Life Balance

POLICIES Time Flexibility Location Flexibility Benefits and Support Measurement Benchmarking Implementation Plans PROCESSES Work Organisation Technology HR Systems Audit Resources PEOPLE Role Models Inform/Educate/Consult/Em power Training Feedback Behaviour OUTCOMES For Individuals For the Organisation For Society/the Community Review Sustainability

input from workshops with line managers in both or part time will have a negative effect on their careers public and private sector organisations. or their bonuses will inevitably feel wary of taking advantage of work-life balance policies. Before we look at why organisations struggle to make work-life balance deliver, it helps to examine Moreover, these batteries of policies are rarely why individuals have problems balancing the various integrated into an overall work-life balance strategy. parts of their lives. At heart, the dilemma of workAs a result, much of potential impact, for all life balance is one of complexity management. Our stakeholders, is lost. Victorian ancestors, who worked 60 hours a week To stimulate culture change, policies need to with a mere handful of public holidays, do not be backed up with change in systems and in the appear to have suffered angst about work-life attitudes and capability of people. The organisation balance, so why do we? Put simply, our lives are needs to examine its: immensely more complex and becoming increasingly Processes for work organisation how it divides so with every year that passes. In every aspect of up work and responsibilities. our lives, we have more choices, more opportunities, Technologyfor example, whether people at all and more demands upon us. Think, for example, levels can work effectively from home or how how many more activities the typical parent ends delivery routes are planned. up transporting their children to each week! HR systems how processes such as appraisal, The same is true for employer organisations. recruitment, succession planning, and access to The concept of excellence was replaced by that of training either support or hinder work-life agility, as the Holy Grail of surviving and thriving. balance objectives. Organisations need to be Auditing both policies far-seeing but capable of The dilemma of work-life balance is (are they up-to-date and rapid action and reaction mutually supportive?) and a difficult juggling act. In one of complexity management. Put processes should take place order to gain real value simply, our lives are immensely more at least on an annual basis. from investment in workcomplex and becoming increasingly In the people context, there life balance, organisations is a clear need for positive need to recognise it as a so with every year that passes. In role models at all levels in complex issue and apply every aspect of our lives, we have the organisation. Equally, much more holistic communication between the more choices, more opportunities, solutions than has usually organisation and employees been the case. and more demands upon us. should raise understanding Most organisations we of what is possible in examined put considerable achieving flexibility for both of them, and ensure effort into establishing policies for work-life balance. that employees have a practical input into policy But policies don't change anything if the culture is and processes. resistant. Employees who fear that working flexibly

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THEJOURNAL F O R QUALITY & PARTICIPATION

Fall 2004

Training is also an essential ingredient in the culture change. There are at least four key audiences for training: Top management, who need regular briefings and help in demonstrating commitment and effective role modeling. Individual employees, who frequently need help to determine what kind of work-life balance they want and why; and to plan how they will achieve their work-life balance goals. Line managers, who need to learn how to allocate work more effectively, to distinguish between urgent and important tasks, and to extract value from enabling direct reports to work more flexibly or remotely. The team, so that it can take greater responsibility for evolving win/win solutions to potential conflict between employees' needs and the needs of the business. If these four audiences are aligned in their understanding of the issues, the priorities, and how to achieve these collaboratively, the chances of changing both attitude and behaviour are greatly increased. The final element in a coherent approach to worklife balance relates to the measurement of outcomes. To maintain enthusiasm and momentum, there must be clear and positive impacts for employees and the organisation. In addition, there is a strong case, in the context of corporate reputation, for measuring

impacts on the community, for example, the level of volunteering by employees. The net result of our research has been the development of a quality model for work-life balance, which pulls all these strands together, as shown in Table 1. The list of potential paybacks for the employer is long. The hard returns those that are expressed in cash, return on investment, or share price are the most difficult to measure. It is cleat from our analysis that most of the impact of work-life balance activity is on intermediary or indirect factors, such as retention, corporate reputation, productivity, quality, creativity, and customer service.
Reprinted with permission. Clutterbuck Associates 2003.

Professor David Clutterbuck is one of Europe's most prolific and well-known management writers and thinkers. He has written more than 40 books and hundreds of articles on cutting-edge management themes. Clutterbuck's other main interest is the evolving subject of work-life balance, referred to as "corporate bigamy" when he first discovered it in the 1970s. The publication of his most recent book, Managing Work-Life Balance, presents the findings of his in-depth research into this area, which has now become a hot topic in the field of management. He can be reached at david@clutterbuckassociates. co. uk .

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