Foundation Forum: Debate 3

• Moderator: Willis Goldbeck, social and economic policy consultant
• Introduction: Sabrina Tesoka, European Foundation
• Discussants:
  1. Wolfgang Seidl, ACCOR, France [Abstract]
  2. Reija Lilja, Labour Institute for Economic Research, Finland
  3. Lucy Fallon-Byrne, National Centre for Partnership and Performance, Ireland
  4. Sandra Bonfiglioli, Professor of Land Science, University of Milan, Italy
• Rapporteur: Christian Welz, European Foundation

Debate report by Christian Welz:

Persisting gender imbalance in care Sabrina Tesoka stressed the fact that a win-win scenario is not a myth, but a reality for men and women as well as for companies. These mutual benefits were dependant upon a number of supporting factors rooted in national legislation and collective bargaining, as well as the organisational culture and HRM practices of undertakings, and upon a partnership approach in industrial relations. She alerted the participants to the fact that a lot remains to be done at home.

According to the European Survey on Working Conditions the figures with regard to the gender ‘imbalance’ in care at home is still very marked: only 24% of men in contrast to 41% of women take care of the children for at least an hour per day. The respective figures for housework are 12% for men and 63% for women.

The lively and interesting debate with the discussants which followed the introductory presentation can be clustered around the following topics:

Ample evidence for a win-win-situation

Due to demographic changes in the workforce and increasing pressure on personal lives, new topics and instruments for employee support are emerging. Stress, care, well-being, resilience, childcare, eldercare, etc. are becoming vital strategies for a better work-life balance of an increasingly diverse workforce. Against this background the answer to the leading question posed in the title of the workshop was clear cut and unequivocal. It is a win-win situation and the benefits can be measured with regard to three strands.

Firstly, there are benefits for the employer:

• improved recruitment and retention;
• less absenteeism and sick leave;
• higher productivity;
• improved parental return;
• reduced labour turn over;
• better corporate image.

As an illustration of the above benefits following examples were cited:

• Stress-related sick leave costs Stg£7.1m each week while the average cost of an employee leaving is nearly Stg£4,000, rising to Stg£6,000 for a manager;
• Xerox (UK) Ltd estimates it has saved over one million pounds over the last five years through enhanced retention due to better policies, including flexible working and leave schemes;
• BT (UK) reports that 98% of women now return to work after maternity leave, saving the firm three million pounds in recruitment and induction costs. The company also said absenteeism is down to 3.1% compared to the UK average of 8.5%;
• Replacing an employee equates to 50-100% of the annual salary of an employee.

The employee also benefits from investments in work-life balance schemes via:

• higher job satisfaction;
• more flexible work time patterns;
• better career and skill development;
• less stress.

Finally, the participants made the point that society as a whole can be considered to be on the winning side, since one can expect a:

• more competitive economy;
• more inclusive society.

However, in the current economic climate, such expenditure has to be justified with reference to evidence-based practice, including the assessment of the return on investment of Employee Assistance Programmes and Work-Life services. Wolgang Seidl claimed that benefits can be quantified and measured in terms of return on investment. He introduced a Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator that has been developed with support from a Harvard-based researcher and with the figure of a return of 16 times the investment being possible. There were mainly five categories in which gains and/or savings for companies having introduced work-life balance schemes would occur:

• increased productivity;
• time savings;
• avoidance of health related problems
• recruitment and retention;
• less absenteeism.

This taken into account, work-life balance arrangements are to be seen as an efficient means of fostering employee and company resilience.

The necessity for a more holistic and community-wide approach to work-life balance

Work-life balance is not only an issue between (1) employer and employee and (2) a trade union and an employer organisation, i.e an issue of social dialogue, but is also an issue for the civil dialogue and action at regional and local level.

What are the challenges to an improved work–life balance in the city in terms of space and time for working and living? As an example of good practice of action at the local level Sandra Bonfiglioli sketched urban time policies impacting on work-life balance trying to answer the question. Urban time policies are public policies on a territory for the improvement of services (e.g. care facilities, transport) influencing the work-life balance of individuals. An interesting example of a pro-active urban time policy approach was reported from Italy where the so-called Turco-act (53/200) integrated the regulation on parental leave with directives on urban time policies. Another good practice of a holistic appraoch to work-life balance stemmed from the Italian Region Lombardy where a regional statute tackled the issues of equal opportunites, work-life balance and the rapprochement of social and civil dialogue in an integrated manner. Work-life balance, according to Ms Bonfiglioli, is one of the five criteria by means of which one can measure the quality of life, the others being: employability, income and social security, quality of work and time sovereignty.

A new ‘psychological contract’ for knowledge workers

In the future, high performing organisations will be those entities flexible enough to meet the demands of a competitive global market while still able to accommodate the needs of a changing workforce. Viewing Ireland as a paradigmatic case Lucy Fallon-Byrne drew attention to the fact that employment relations are dramatically changing: they are becoming more individualised and focussed on reward, recognition and more flexiblity. Companies have to react to these changes with more organisational flexibility which will be the key source of competitive advantage in the future. Asking for more flexibility from workers adds additional stress to their working conditions. According to a recent survey by the Irish Forum on ‘The workplace of the future’ 18% of the employees come home from work too exhausted to engage in other activities. According to Fallon-Byrne one may consequently wonder about their motivation on the next working day.

To these demands a modern and successful workplace will have to riposte by facilitating individual and organisational responses for the need of work-life balance. One possible answer could lie in a new ‘psychological contract’ with the knowledge workers balancing the need for the company’s flexibility in times of globalisation with those of the workers for reward, recognition and increased flexibility of working time patterns. As stated by Ms Fallon-Byrne this was also a particular challenge to Ireland as a ‘technology taker’ rather than a ‘technology maker’ and that the indigeneous companies will be decisive for the success of the Celtic Tiger in the future. She also stressed that there was now a compelling business case for investment in this area.

Perceived barriers for SMEs and microfirms

Can all employers, big and small, offer flexible working arrangements or other ‘work-life friendly’ policies to their employees? Companies with less than 250 employees and microfirms (less than 10 employees) perceive, often mistakingly, the introduction of work-life balance schemes as too complicated and too costly. This may be the case for sophisticated solutions, but Ms Reija Lilja pointed to the fact that simply allowing a parent to arrive 10 minutes later for work could mean the diffference between losing and retaining a worker. Consequently, there are many ways to increase flexibility in the workplace: ‘think smart and simple’ was the proposed slogan for this context. It was also proposed to view work-life balance arrangements as one component of corporate social responsibility which could be measured and analysed by audit systems.

The role of the European Union

A final question was whether or not the European Union should intervene in work-life balance issues? The participants’ opinion was quite split on this issue. Some argued that the EU is already active in this field via legislative measures such as the prental leave directive. Others opposed that work-life balance is a classical topic for the application of the principle of subsidiarity, both on a vertical (EU Member States) and a horizontal axis (governments – social partners). The EU dimension of the work-life balance issue was also corroborated by the recommendations of the Kok I and II reports.