WORK-LIFE BALANCE

An introduction to work-life balance issues and a preliminary exploration

of work-life balance culture in NUI, Maynooth

Dr. Ann Coughlan

Quality Promotion Office, National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM)
April 2005
Table of Contents

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………….(i)
List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………..(ii)

1. Introduction...................................................................................................................... 1
2. Project aims and objectives............................................................................................. 2
3. Project methodology overview........................................................................................ 2
4. Conceptualising ‘work-life balance’............................................................................... 3
4.1 What is work-life balance? Problems of definition ..................................................... 3
4.2 What constitutes ‘good’ work-life balance or work-life imbalance?........................... 5
4.3 Frameworks for understanding work-life balance issues............................................. 7
4.3.1 The relationship between work-life and life outside work ................................... 7
4.3.2 Analysis of work-life balance at the level of the individual ................................. 8
4.3.3 Evaluating work-life balance culture in an organisation .................................... 10
4.4 Work-life balance in the Irish context ....................................................................... 12
5. Factors influencing the evolution of work-life balance .............................................. 15
5.1 Demographic and labour force change ...................................................................... 15
5.2 Rise of technology enabling new ways of working ................................................... 16
5.3 Globalisation processes.............................................................................................. 16
5.4 Developments/increasing pressure at work ............................................................... 16
5.5 Developments/increasing pressure in life outside work ............................................ 17
5.6 Changing attitudes and values of people in work ...................................................... 17
5.7 Trends in Human Resource Management (HRM) practice ....................................... 18
5.8 Equality, equity and diversity concerns/meeting legislation requirements ............... 18
5.9 Increase in certain types of sickness and disease....................................................... 18
6. Key themes emerging from the literature.................................................................... 18
6.1 Problems of definition/conceptual issues................................................................... 19
6.2 Factors influencing evolution of the concept of work-life balance ........................... 19
6.3 The issue of evidence................................................................................................. 19
6.3.1 Evidence of availability ...................................................................................... 19
6.3.2 Evidence of take-up ............................................................................................ 20
6.4 Business Case............................................................................................................. 21
6.4.1 Potential benefits................................................................................................. 21
6.4.2 Potential costs ..................................................................................................... 22
6.5 Challenges.................................................................................................................. 22
6.5.1 Challenges for organisation ................................................................................ 23
6.5.2 Challenges for employees ................................................................................... 24
6.6 Case studies................................................................................................................ 26
6.7 Guiding principles and recommendations for implementation.................................. 26
6.8 Strategic planning and management tools ................................................................. 28
7. NUI, Maynooth context ................................................................................................. 30
8. Exploratory staff survey................................................................................................ 33
8.1 Survey objectives ....................................................................................................... 33
8.2 Survey methodology .................................................................................................. 33
8.2.1 Survey population and sampling procedure........................................................ 33
8.2.2 Survey questionnaire design ............................................................................... 34
8.2.3 Data collection and analysis procedures ............................................................. 34
8.3 Survey findings .......................................................................................................... 34
8.3.1 Respondent profile .............................................................................................. 35
8.3.2 Take-up of work-life balance arrangements ....................................................... 43
 8.3.3 Perceptions and suggestions with regard to work-life balance culture in NUI,
Maynooth ..................................................................................................................... 45
8.4 Conclusions from exploratory survey ........................................................................ 52
9. Consultation process through Partnership Committee................................................ 55
10. Case studies................................................................................................................... 56
10.1 Methodology ............................................................................................................ 56
10.2 Principal findings ..................................................................................................... 58
10.3 Case study conclusions ............................................................................................ 65
11. Project conclusions and recommendations................................................................ 66
11.1 Project overview and conclusions............................................................................ 66
11.2 Critical issues for the development and management of work-life balance policy . 68
11.3 Recommendations.................................................................................................... 69
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 73

Appendix 1 Leaflet Work-Life Balance Initiatives in NUI, Maynooth 77

Appendix 2 Exploratory survey questionnaire 78
Appendix 3 Letter accompanying exploratory survey questionnaire 80
Appendix 4 Consultation process - handout for Partnership Committee 81
Appendix 5 Consultation process survey questionnaire 83
Appendix 6 Case-studies - guiding questions for informal interviews 85
List of Tables
No. Title Page
Table 1 Overview of project methodology 2

Table 2 The continuum of change from the formative to the fully mature stage 11
indicating the criteria which need to be changed and developed.

Table 3 Work-life balance arrangements (*statutory and non-statutory) 14

Table 4 The quality model for work-life balance 29

Table 5 NUI, Maynooth full-time staff breakdown by contract type and gender, 30
number (February, 2005)

Table 6 Work-life balance arrangements available in NUI, Maynooth (*statutory and 31

non-statutory)

Table 7 Gender breakdown of sample, number and % of valid responses 36

Table 8 Age structure of sample by gender, number and % of respondents 36

Table 9 Dependent children by gender of respondent, number and % of respondents 38

Table 10 Dependent children by work category of respondents, number of 38

respondents

Table 11 School category breakdown of dependent children, no. and % of all children 38

Table 12 Sick/elderly/disabled dependents by gender of respondents, number and % 39

of valid responses

Table 13 Contractual arrangements in terms of permanent/temporary contract type, by 40

gender, number and % of valid responses

Table 14 Contractual arrangements in terms of full-time/part-time work, by gender, 41

number and % valid responses

Table 15 Respondents’ work categories by gender, number and % respondents 42

Table 16 Take-up of work-life balance arrangements, by gender, % of valid responses 44

Table 17 Work-life balance arrangements availed of by staff, by gender, number and 44

% of mentions

Table 18 Ratio of agree/agree strongly to disagree/disagree strongly, % of 48

respondents by category, in relation to awareness of provision made by
NUIM to accommodate work-life balance

Table 19 Suggestions/comments with regard to other organisational work 50/51

arrangements/supports which would improve WLB for staff, % of mentions

i
List of Figures
No. Title Page
Figure 1 Nature, causes and consequences of work-life balance 9

Figure 2 Key themes emerging from literature on work-life balance 18

Figure 3 Gender breakdown of sample, % of respondents 36

Figure 4 Age structure of sample by gender, % of respondents 37

Figure 5 Age category breakdown of dependent children, % of all children 39

Figure 6 Contractual arrangements in relation to permanent/temporary work, % valid 40

responses

Figure 7 Contractual arrangements in terms of full-time/part-time work by gender, % 41

valid responses

Figure 8 Respondents’ work categories, % of respondents 42

Figure 9 Awareness of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life 46

balance, % valid responses

Figure 10 Awareness of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life 47

balance, response rates as % all males and % all females (valid responses)

Figure 11 NUIM views flexible working arrangements positively, 48

agreement/disagreement, % of valid responses

ii
1. Introduction
Changes in the social, political and economic fabric of societies have influenced and
continue to influence both the nature of employment and its relationship to life outside
work. This project is set against a background of changing trends in the work
environment. In the 1970s the academic literature was awash with articles assuming the
continuation of trends predicting huge increases in leisure time for the 21st century. The
following quotation sums this assumption up neatly.

Until quite recently it was widely assumed, particularly in and concerning the richer
countries, that working hours were steadily reducing, the amount of leisuretime
increasing and that these trends would continue. Many people looked forward to a
golden age of leisure (WTO, 1999: 3).
However, as national economies struggle to compete in an increasingly competitive world
economy, there are ramifications for employees. Changing employment patterns together
with changes in the demographic structure of the workforce have resulted in a different
reality for the 21st century. Instead of trying to manage copious amounts of leisure time,
many workers are instead trying to juggle numerous responsibilities with the increased,
intensified demands of work.

Such reality, and in particular, transformations in the structure of both the workplace and
the workforce imply that work practices and employers’ expectations must change
accordingly. The traditional assumption that employees should be willing and able to
make work their top priority in life is no longer tenable. It is in this context that the
notion of ‘work-life balance’ has come to the fore in policy debates.

Work-life balance is central to debates about quality of working life and its relation to
broader quality of life. Much has been written on the subject and this project represents
an attempt to extrapolate and synthesise the main themes before exploring the nature of
work-life balance culture in NUI, Maynooth.

This project is one of a series of projects that are being implemented by the Equality
Authority and funded by the National Framework Committee for Work Life Balance.
The Committee was established at the beginning of 2000 under the Programme for
Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) and continues under the current National Agreement,
Sustaining Progress. It is chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and
Employment.

1
2. Project aims and objectives
The aim of this project is to provide a context for work-life balance issues and to
undertake a preliminary exploration of work-life balance culture in NUI, Maynooth. It
further aims to make recommendations based on findings and undertake some initial
development activity.

In line with the aims of the project, the objectives are fourfold as follows:-
• to develop a contextual framework for work-life balance issues,
• to explore and evaluate the nature of work-life balance culture in NUI,
Maynooth,
• to make suggestions for improvements,
• to undertake some preliminary development activity.

3. Project methodology overview

Table 1 outlines the methodology that will be employed to meet the objectives stated in
Section 2.

Table 1: Overview of project methodology

Objective Methodology
To develop a contextual • Talk to key informants.
framework for work-life • Extrapolate, synthesise and summarise main themes
balance issues. emerging from literature.
To explore and evaluate • Evaluate policy and practice in relation to work-life
the nature of work-life balance in NUIM by liaising with Personnel Office.
balance culture in • Elicit initial perceptions of staff through survey of sample
NUIM. population.
• Engage in fuller consultation process through Partnership
Committee and second survey to all staff.
• Evaluate how we compare to other organisations by
carrying out case-studies and drawing on the literature.
To make suggestions for • Highlight critical issues for taking process forward.
improvements. • Make recommendations based on findings.
To undertake some • Develop leaflet showing work-life balance arrangements
preliminary available in NUIM.
development activity. • Disseminate results of project and circulate leaflet.
• Arrange training event for University management.
• Develop e-learning pack.
• Run Springboard development course.

2
This section will not enter into detailed methodology description at this stage. It was
considered more prudent to present the description of methodologies with the respective
findings and analysis for each task.

4. Conceptualising ‘work-life balance’

This section will provide a summary of the main themes arising in the literature around
attempts at conceptualising ‘work-life balance’. The term ‘work-life balance’ is much
contested in itself. Attempting to clarify its meaning prompts a further problem: ‘what
constitutes ‘good’ work-life balance? This section will summarise some of the problems
surrounding both of these issues, before providing a number of frameworks that have
been developed from a number of different perspectives. Finally, the section will provide
an overview of the Irish context for the purposes of this project, outlining a range of
possible work-life balance arrangements and differentiating between those that are
legislated for and those that are non-statutory.

4.1 What is work-life balance? Problems of definition

Much confusion and ambiguity surrounds the understanding and definition of the term
work-life balance. As a term in its own right work-life balance is rarely defined for
reasons that will become clearer as the discussion progresses. Many of the attempts at
definition relate to work-life balance policy or work-life balance arrangements.
Nevertheless, it is possible to discern a number of distinct strands in the literature in
relation to definitional and conceptual issues.

The first of these themes concerns the contentious area of family-friendly vs. work-life
balance arrangements. Work-life balance emerged as a term to replace family-friendly
and work-family in order to reflect a broader and more inclusive way of conceptualising
the issues, and to enable men and those without children, for example, to identify with
them. However, the perception that work-life balance policies are a family matter and
aimed solely at women with children is still held by many employees and employers. As
Clutterbuck states:

Drawing an arbitrary line that suggests flexible working is all right for one group and
not for another is neither logical nor useful. It is difficult to advance a tenable
argument why policies on working flexibility should not apply to all employees. Why,
in principle, should it be more acceptable for an employee with young children to be

3
 able to adjust his or her hours, than for someone who wishes to compete at an amateur
level in his or her chosen sport? (2003:19).
Indeed, he states elsewhere that

Even those who don’t have multiple, externally-imposed obligations may feel they lack
work-life balance if they have a wide range of other interests they want to pursue
(ibid:66).

Similarly, and in an Irish context, Drew et. al, though pointing out that their report
primarily addresses the needs of employees to balance work and ‘family’ life,
acknowledge that:-

Flexible working arrangements are not a ‘women’s issue’, they are a ‘people issue’.
All employees, irrespective of their family situation or personal responsibilities, need
and want to have greater balance between their lives inside and outside work
(2002:28).

Clutterbuck points out that while in general there is no evidence to suggest that there is
widespread resentment among employees without children for benefits given to those
who do have children, the issue surfaces regularly in research amongst employee groups1.
The change in terminology then from family-friendly to work-life balance is in itself of
little value unless policy and practice reflect inclusivity.

However, this is just one of the problems associated with terminology and meaning.
Guest (2001), amongst others, takes the term work-life balance apart and analyses each of
the concepts - balance, work and life - thus highlighting the complexities and dangers in
the loose use of metaphor. He refers to the term work-life balance as a misnomer and one
that serves simply as convenient shorthand for work and the rest of life.

In a short article titled ‘Work and the meaning of life’, Guest (2002:1) begins as follows:

A favourite question of my father’s was, “Do you live to eat or eat to live?” I long ago
found the answer to that one: I live to eat…and drink and travel and talk. Now the big
question seems to be, “Do we live to work or work to live?” and over recent years the
strange concept of work-life balance has appeared. I say strange because the
juxtaposition of the two processes suggests a certain mutual exclusivity: either we work
or we live.
This quote encapsulates the central tenet of yet another problem associated with defining
and understanding work-life balance, that of the assumption that work and the rest of life

1
On a personal note I can corroborate the latter point, as this issue resulted in heated discussion at an IUTN
[Irish University Training Network] seminar that I attended on work-life balance on 8/9/04.

4
are in some way antithetical or mutually exclusive. The term implies that work is not part
of life and furthermore it ignores the distinction between paid and unpaid work and
suggests that unpaid care work is just a part of the non-work area of life. Guest (2002:3)
does not accept the juxtaposition implied in the term work-life balance and believes that

we must reclaim work as an integral part of life and see it as interwoven with other
aspects of what we are and what we do.

A number of analysts (e.g. Lewis et al., 2003, Rapoport et al, 2002 and Taylor, 2002)
suggest work-personal life integration as a working terminology to capture the synergies
and connections between the different parts of life and the ways in which they flow into
each other. However, for the purposes of this project the term work-life balance will be
used as it is the term used in the Irish policy context.

A further problem identified relates to the assumption in the literature that imbalance
arises due to the intrusion of work into non-work. In reality there are many situations
where the flow can be the other way around. On a similar theme, yet another point is that
research has concentrated on the demands of work rather than those of ‘home’ which
results in only a partial understanding of the issues in work-life balance debates.
Research must therefore incorporate a fuller understanding of life outside work in order to
be meaningful.

4.2 What constitutes ‘good’ work-life balance or work-life imbalance?

This last point leads to the question: what constitutes ‘good’ work-life balance or
conversely, imbalance? Section 4.3 below will elaborate further on this question. Suffice
it to say for now that ‘good’ work-life balance is highly subjective. Indeed Lewis et al
state that answering this question necessitates asking deeper, more fundamental questions:

What are good lives? What kind of societies do we want to live in? How do the ways we
integrate the different aspects of our lives affect wider societies? And how does this
feed into desires to make societies more democratic, equitable and enjoyable? These
questions are seldom considered in debates on the integration of paid work and
personal life. Yet the ways in which we are able to or wish to integrate the many
different aspects of life go to the heart of our values, assumptions and behaviour
(2003:5).
Work-life balance then is about making choices and exerting some control over our lives.
Indeed some analysts question where the locus of intervention to improve work-life

5
balance lies? Is this the responsibility of the individual, the family, the employer, the
community or the state?

Guest (2001) reports on some of the variables found to cause imbalance from the results
of the annual UK CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) surveys2.
Imbalance was a factor for those in managerial positions, on higher incomes, working
longer hours, for women rather than men, for those with dependent children; and for
multiple jobholders. On the other hand, less imbalance was reported by those who
experienced a friendly climate in the workplace and who had autonomy and opportunities
for direct participation. Interestingly, from a policy perspective, the presence of ‘family-
friendly’ practices was not associated with a reported work-life balance. This implies that
they were either ineffectually implemented or that they may have merely lessened the
problem.

This last point is further corroborated by American research (Clark, 2000), which looked
at the experiences of employees with regard to temporal flexibility, which gave workers
control over when they worked. The research also looked at their experiences with regard
to operational flexibility, which gave control over how they worked through autonomy,
flexibility, supportive supervision and fewer ‘rules’. Somewhat contrary to expectations,
the research showed that operational flexibility and not temporal flexibility was
associated with better-reported work-life balance. The culture of the workplace is
therefore an important determinant and far more important than work-life balance policy
bundles.

There is research (e.g. Hochschild, 1997) to suggest that the use of progressive human
resource practices to generate commitment to work can risk making work almost too
attractive. For example, there are ever increasing demands made on parents’ time ranging
from transporting children to various events to devoting ‘quality time’ to family. In such
circumstances, work, particularly where the social and physical environment is attractive
and there is a degree of autonomy and scope for development, can appear particularly
appealing.

2
This is an annual survey of the psychological contract and the state of the employment relationship, which
questions a random sample of 1,000 people in the working population.

6
There are also arguments that suggest that work-life imbalance is a symptom of an
affluent society or that it is relevant only for a particular social class. Drew et al
(2002:123) state, in relation to Irish society, that ‘at present those on low pay and in low
level jobs are not able to participate in work-life balance because of the loss of pay
involved and the minimum cost savings occurring for these groups.’ Lewis et al (2003:9)
argue that by ignoring social class, most of the debate has focused on professional and
white-collar issues.

Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that there is evidence to suggest that work-life
imbalance reflected in too little work is at least as serious, if not more, than imbalance
caused by too much work.

4.3 Frameworks for understanding work-life balance issues

Thus far, some of the key themes in the literature highlighting the problems of defining
and conceptualising work-life balance have been discussed. Trying to determine the
nature of ‘good’ work-life balance further highlights the complexities of the issues
involved. Whilst bearing these difficulties in mind, this section provides the reader with a
number of frameworks, which can be used as means for understanding and analysing
work-life balance issues. The first set of models attempts to describe the relationship
between work-life and life outside work, thus providing an overview. The second model
takes account of the individual level of analysis, and finally a model is presented which
looks at work-life balance issues at the level of the organisation. It is this last model that
is of most interest in this project, a central aim of which is to evaluate work-life balance
culture in the organisation (NUIM).

4.3.1 The relationship between work-life and life outside work

As previously suggested, attempting to conceptualise ‘work-life balance’ necessitates an
understanding of the relationship(s) between work life and non-work life. Work analysts
note that there are typically five main descriptive models that can be drawn on in this
respect (Zedeck and Mosier, 1990; O’Driscoll, 1996; Guest, 2001). A brief overview of
these models follows. The first is the segmentation model which holds that work and
non-work are two distinct spheres of life that are lived separately with neither one having
influence on the other. In contrast, the spillover model hypothesises that either world can
influence the other in positive/negative ways. The third model, a compensation model,

7
suggests that what may be lacking in one domain in terms of demands and satisfactions
can be made up for in the other. For example, work may be repetitive and routine but this
is compensated for by a major role in local community activity outside work. In the
fourth model activities in one sphere facilitate activities in the other. This is the
instrumental model. An example here is of an instrumental worker who will work long
hours to maximise earnings, even if it means working in routine jobs, to allow him/her to
purchase house/car for a young family. The final model is the conflict model. This
proposes that when there are high levels of demand in all spheres of life, difficult choices
will have to be made which will often result in conflicts.

Guest (2001) argues that while these models provide us with ways of viewing the
relationships between work and non-work, further research needs to provide frameworks
for the analysis of the boundary between work and the rest of life. He suggests that one
such approach may be to draw on border theory (Clark, 2000); however, this is beyond
the scope of this project.

4.3.2 Analysis of work-life balance at the level of the individual

While the models outlined above provide a way of conceptualising the relationships
between work life and non-work life they are unable to easily address the question of
what constitutes a balance between work and the rest of life. Such research might begin,
for example, from concerns arising from the spillover or conflict models as described
above.

In order to develop a meaningful analysis of work-life balance, researchers agree that we

need to separate the nature, causes and consequences of a more or less positive work-life
balance. The following model (Figure 1) provides a number of variables for this purpose
and is presented from a work-organisational psychology perspective to take account of
the individual level of analysis.

8
Figure 1 Nature, causes and consequences of work-life balance
Determinants Nature of the Balance Consequences/Impact

A. Contextual A. Subjective Work satisfaction

Demands of work Balance - no emphasis Life satisfaction
Culture of work Balance - home central Mental health/well-being
Demands of home* Balance - work central Stress/illness
Culture of home Spillover of work to home
Spillover of home to work
B. Individual factors B. Objective Behaviour/performance at work
Work orientation Hours of work Behaviour/performance at home
Personality ‘Free’ time Impact on others at work
Energy Family roles Impact on others at home
Personal control and coping
Gender
Age, life and career stage
Psychological
Source: adapted from Guest, 2001:7
* ‘home’ is used as shorthand for ‘life outside work’

The model incorporates the main issues that need to be addressed in the analysis of work-
life balance. The determinants are situated in the work and home (life outside work)
contexts. The demands of work may be too high or too low and the work culture may be
unsupportive. For example the organisation may not have policies or practices to support
flexible working or may have a ‘long hours’ culture. The demands of home refer to
commitments outside of work which may be family, community or leisure oriented. The
culture of home as displayed in Figure 1 refers to the expectations of those in the ‘home’
environment with regard to obligations and commitments.

As well as contextual determinants individual factors affecting perception of work-life

balance must also be considered. These include orientation to work and in particular the
degree to which work (or ‘home’) is a central life interest and a major aspect for self-
identity. Similarly aspects of personality such as need for achievement and work
involvement need to be considered. Energy levels, particularly in the case of high
demand, will influence perception, and this includes the capacity to cope with pressures
of competing demand. Gender will often be a factor, particularly amongst women with
children, and age, life-stage and career-stage issues all influence willingness to tolerate
certain kinds of demands at work and at home. Finally, there may be psychological
factors that help to explain why some people perceive imbalance while others, in similar
situations, do not. Psychologists incorporate social information processing, cognitive
resource and dissonance theories to try to explain these differences.

9
There are numerous possible outcomes of work-life balance and some are listed here in
the work, home and personal spheres. While this model was developed by Guest as a
framework for a possible research agenda, it is useful in this project to illustrate the main
dimensions and variables in the nature, causes and consequences of work-life balance. It
provides us with one means of conceptualising work-life balance issues, particularly from
the point of view of the individual.

4.3.3 Evaluating work-life balance culture in an organisation

The above model shows just how complex and subjective notions of work-life balance
can be. Different combinations of variables gives rise to a myriad of individual situations
which change over time. How then is it possible for organisations to meet the needs of
such individuals as employees? While the model above addresses aspects of
organisational context, it primarily provides for analysis from the individual employee
perspective. The model described in this section is one that takes the organisation as its
starting point. Most analysts agree that in order for organisations to meet the changing
work-life balance needs of its workforce it must move beyond simply introducing policies
and programmes. Essentially there must be a cultural change within the organisation and
a change in the way that work is organised.

The Irish Work Life Balance Network (WLBN) Development Partnership3 developed a
very useful evolutionary process model4 which can be employed by organisations to meet
the changing work-life balance needs of employees. This framework is shown in Table 2.

3
Under the EQUAL Community Initiative Programme. The network consists of six major employers -
Eircom, An Post, Dublin Bus, Iarnród Éireann, Dublin City Council and the Public Appointments Service
as well as the Social Partners - IBEC and ICTU and is managed by the Education and Training Services
Trust Ltd.
4
This forms part of their Work Life Balance Diagnostic Pack (see WLBN, 2004).

10
Table 2 The continuum of change from the formative to the fully mature stage indicating
the criteria which need to be changed and developed.
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Formative Broadening Deepening Mature WLB
Organisation
Early Broadening Deepening Meeting all employee and
initiatives the range business needs
A. WLB policies A1 A2 A3 A4
B. Culture to support WLB B1 B2 B3 B4
C. Assessment and C1 C2 C3 C4
monitoring
D. Communications D1 D2 D3 D4
E. Business case E1 E2 E3 E4
F. Management F1 F2 F3 F4
G. Work practices G1 G2 G3 G4
H. Developing ‘people’ H1 H2 H3 H4
competencies within the
Organisation
Source: WLBN, 2004:50.

In the development of an approach to work-life balance the model suggests that

organisations should move from the formative stage (Stage 1) of development through to
the mature stage (Stage 4) where there is a mature organisational response to employees’
work life balance needs. The stages, referred to as a continuum of change, are described
as follows by the WLBN (2004:51).

• Stage 1: Formative
At this stage the organistion is based on the ‘ideal worker’ who has all domestic and
personal issues under control.
• Stage 2: Broadening
At this stage the organisation starts to look at a broader range of Work Life Balance
initiatives such as more flexible working patterns usually based on employee
demands. Many initiatives become available, often still female dominated; often the
up-take is still low; and often there is some level of response and action.
• Stage 3: Deepening
The organisation starts to recognise and address cultural difficulties.
• Stage 4: Mature
Systems are in place to arrange and design work which meets organisational and
employee goals.

As the table indicates eight organisational work-life balance criteria or variables have
been identified (A - H) and each of these has different or changing characteristics in each
of the four developmental stages. These are laid out in a series of clear tables in the
diagnostic pack (WLBN, 2004). The WLBN envisage this process occurring over a

11
period of years rather than months and usually as a result of targeted actions taken by
those within the organisation.

This last framework is the most useful of the models presented from the perspective of the
objectives of this project. While it is necessary to understand and take cognisance of the
complexities of work-life balance at the level of the individual, a stated aim of this project
is to explore and evaluate the nature of work-life balance culture in NUIM. This model
could therefore provide a useful starting point.

4.4 Work-life balance in the Irish context

The themes raised in previous sections in relation to conceptualising work-life balance
issues are all applicable in the Irish context and indeed the final framework described
above was developed by an Irish network for the Irish context. In Ireland, debates around
work-life balance issues for the most part continue to focus on ‘family-friendly’ issues
and particularly on the needs of working women with young children. For example, a
recent news programme on Irish television (Prime Time, RTE1, 17th February, 2005)
introduced work-life balance as a topic for studio discussion. However, the entire report
focused on the need for a childcare strategy in Ireland, which gave the impression that
‘work-life balance’ was an issue exclusively for mothers of young children.

As one component of work-life balance, the focus on a comprehensive childcare strategy

is, of course, necessary, especially when the changing nature of the Irish labour market is
considered. Some of the more relevant changes include:
• Female employment participation has increased by 15% since 1994;
• Ireland’s target for female labour market participation is 60% by 2010 under the
Lisbon process;
• Female participation grew by 140% between 1971 and 2001 while male
participation grew only by 40% over the same period;
• ESRI (Economic and Social Research Institute) estimates economic growth of 4-
5% per year until the end of the decade;
• FÁS (The National Authority for Vocational Training and Education) estimate the
growth will be in skilled areas;
• 50% of women progress to 3rd level education while only 40% of men do; and

12
 • Fertility rates are dropping which has economic and social consequences.
(Source: Fitzpatrick, 2005: 25)

The above factors suggest that it is timely and makes good business sense for both the
government and organisations to (re)consider childcare issues as part of their work-life
balance agendas. In other words, it makes good economic sense to deal with the issues.
Of course work-life balance in its own right is meaningful from a social and cultural
perspective and indeed, increasingly, from a purely political perspective. The recent
byelections in Meath and Kildare North (March 2005) helped to focus political attention
on the growing problem of accessible and affordable childcare (though judging by the low
turnout, it did not motivate many to go to the polls). In a recent editorial it was stated that
childcare costs in Ireland are amongst the highest in Europe though conversely child
benefits for parents in Ireland are also amongst the highest in Europe. As well as
increasing child benefit substantially the Government also sought to deal with the issue by
grant-aiding the establishment of private facilities and by way of state-subsidised
community facilities. Every county is now expected to implement a childcare strategy.
While welcome, these measures are apparently not enough. Furthermore, administrative
failure is widespread as rapid development in some areas has overwhelmed the planners
and put the development and implementation of childcare strategies on hold (Irish Times,
2005).

A recent four country (Ireland, France, Denmark and Italy) comparative study5 on
working parents found that it was much easier to combine work and family life in
Denmark than in any of the other three countries. In Denmark childcare is a public
responsibility where flexible working arrangements are commonplace. The study
identified a number of factors found to be important in determining the ease or difficulty
in combining work and family life. ‘Time’ was amongst the most important of these and
‘commuting time’ in particular, and Ireland scored lowest in this factor due to our high
reliance on the car. A second factor was, not surprisingly, ‘hours spent at work’ followed
by ‘the degree to which domestic duties were shared between partners’. A final important
factor identified related to ‘attitudes in the workplace’ (Fine-Davis, 2005:12).

5
This study resulted in the publication of a book ‘Fathers and Mothers: Dilemmas of the Work-Life
Balance’ which is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in its Social Indicators Research Series.

13
Improving work-life balance is explicitly promoted as an objective of both the EU
Employment Guidelines and the Social Policy Agenda. In Ireland, the National
Framework Committee for Family Friendly Policies at the level of the Enterprise was
established at the beginning of 2000 following negotiations between Government and the
Social Partners under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF). Its remit has
been continued under Sustaining Progress. The Committee, called the National
Framework Committee for Work-Life Balance Policies since January, 2003, has been
charged with examining how best to improve access to work-life balance arrangements in
a way that would be beneficial from both an equality and competitive perspective. The
Committee hosts a website at www.worklifebalance.ie.

Work-life balance policies are described as follows:-

those policies which help workers in combining employment with their family life,
caring responsibilities and personal and social life outside the workplace. This
definition includes statutory entitlements such as maternity, adoptive, force majeure,
parental and carer's leave and other non-statutory measures such as childcare and
employee assistance schemes. (www.worklifebalance.ie)
Table 3 gives examples of the kinds of work-life balance arrangements that exist,
distinguishing between those that have a statutory basis and those that are non-statutory,
and is not necessarily exhaustive. A variety of ‘bundles’ of such policies exist.

Table 3 Work-life balance arrangements (*statutory and non-statutory)

Flexible leave arrangements Flexible working time arrangements
Career breaks/sabbaticals Part-time working
Carer’s Leave* Job sharing
Marriage leave Job splitting
Parental leave* Flexitime
Paternity leave Personalised/flexible hours system
Maternity leave* Compressed working week
Adoption leave* Term time working
Enhanced maternity/adoption leave Annual hours system
Exam and study leave Banking of hours
Force Majeure leave*
Compassionate leave Other arrangements
Bereavement leave Childcare and eldercare arrangement
Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP)
Flexible location Information and referral services
eWorking (e.g. home-working/telecommuting, Employee wellness programmes
virtual teams)
Source: compiled from Coughlan, 2000; IBEC (2002); WLBN, 2004; www.worklifebalance.ie.
*statutory requirements

14
The trends and changes in the structure of the workforce outlined in Section 5 below are
all applicable in the Irish context thus implying that the perceived need for work-life
balance is also present. Changing attitudes to ‘work’ versus ‘home’ life balance issues in
Ireland are neatly summed up in the following quote:

In 1962, 83% of Irish workers stated that work demands should take preference over
personal and family needs: now 37% have this view (Sodexho, 2002, quoted in Fisher,
2004).

5. Factors influencing the evolution of work-life balance

People have always integrated the different parts of their lives and work-life balance has
long been of concern to those interested in the quality of working life and its relation to
the broader quality of life. Indeed, the literature provides many examples from hunter-
gatherer societies through the Industrial Revolution era to the present time. As mentioned
in the introduction to this project, recent rapid changes in the nature of employment and
its relationship to life outside work have catapulted the issue of work-life balance to the
forefront of policy debates and it is possible to identify a number of levers of change that
have brought this about. Some of the most important of these levers are outlined briefly
below.

5.1 Demographic and labour force change

There is agreement in the literature that one of the key factors in the promotion of flexible
working arrangements has been the increasing participation by women in the workforce.
There are several reasons for this increase including later marriage and childbirth, the
ascendancy of the dual earner family, a propensity for women to return to work after
having children, the growth of the services sector at the expense of the traditionally male
dominated manufacturing sector, and social pressures for equal opportunities for men and
women.

A consequence of this trend is that employers have started to pay greater attention to the
needs of employees with caring responsibilities, a trend that is further reinforced by the
increasing number of lone parents in the workforce. In the Irish context of high levels of
economic growth and consequent labour market shortages, employers need to retain
female employees and also need to attract ‘women returnees’ to work.

15
Another significant demographic shift is the ageing of populations in the OECD
countries. This has two implications: first, employers must recognise the caring
responsibilities of its employees and second, because of the associated decline of young
people, employers will need to reconsider their attitudes to older employees.

There is also a trend to suggest that the workforce in general is becoming more highly
educated. The consequences of this trend are that these people demand increased control
over how and when they work. There are also major changes emerging in the
composition of the ‘family’ and it can no longer be assumed that an employee belongs to
a traditional family.

Demographic changes therefore have implications for the structure of the labour force and
in turn for the recruitment and retention needs of organisations.

5.2 Rise of technology enabling new ways of working

The rise of technology, such as the Internet and the mobile phone, has been cited as
another major factor affecting change as it enables new ways of working (such as home
working or other ‘off site’ working) to be adopted. In particular working from home
offers the potential to reconcile work and family life.

5.3 Globalisation processes

Globalisation processes, fuelled by technology, have given rise to the 24-hour
international market place, which has driven the expansion of atypical working hours.
This has led to the need for organisations to develop more flexible working arrangements.

5.4 Developments/increasing pressure at work

Analysts maintain that the pressures in work, for those in work, have been intensifying
over recent years. The rising information load, the need for speed of response and the
importance attached to quality of customer service and its consequences have all been
cited as reasons. People are working longer hours and under greater pressure. Intensity is
taken to refer to the proportion of time spent working at very high speeds and to tight
deadlines.

16
5.5 Developments/increasing pressure in life outside work
There is growing concern in communities that the quality of home and community life is
deteriorating (Guest, 2001). Various explanations associated with affluence have been
put forward: the growth of single parent families, the privatisation of family life and the
lack of local resources and facilities. There is a higher proportion of women than ever
before from all social classes participating in the workforce (in Western industrial
society). Added to this is the increased pressure of work which is reflected in longer
hours, more exhaustion and the necessity of evening and weekend work. The result is a
decrease in ‘quality’ family time. The consequences, according to Guest (2001:2)
‘include increases in juvenile crime, more drug abuse, a reduction in care of the
community and in community participation and less willingness to take responsibility for
care of elderly relatives and for the disadvantaged. While steps to redress these concerns
transcend work and employment, it is nevertheless argued that the demands of work
contribute to a reduced participation in non-work activities resulting in an imbalance’.

5.6 Changing attitudes and values of people in work

It is sometimes argued that the issue of work-life balance has been stimulated by
management writers such as Tulgan (1996) who advocated the arrival of Generation X6, a
cohort of workers who give greater priority to seeking a balance between work and the
rest of life. Furthermore, it is suggested that this generation of workers are not as willing
to show unlimited commitment to the organisation. One reason put forward for this is the
decline in availability of secure, progressive careers as a result of instability in
organisations. There is less justification therefore for employees to be committed. A
further reason, it is argued, is that Generation X workers have a more independent
mindset and are therefore more willing to change.

6
Generation X (those born between 1963 and 1977) now form the core of the workforce. Generation Y or
the net-generation is coming on-stream fast. Research by Bruce Tulgan on Gen-Xers has shown that they
have a significantly different approach to employment: they see themselves as free-agents, are impatient
with old-style hierarchical structures, are willing to negotiate and move jobs in order to achieve their goals.
And his research shows that this free-agent mindset is migrating to workers from different generations. All
of the writings on managing your own career and the ending of the life-time contract of employment merely
increase the spread of the free-agent mindset.

17
5.7 Trends in Human Resource Management (HRM) practice
The development of Human Resource Management (HRM) within organisations has also
played a role in the promotion of flexible working arrangements, particularly in the
context of ‘best practice’ and ‘employer of choice’ concepts.

5.8 Equality, equity and diversity concerns/meeting legislation requirements

The introduction of equality legislation and the increasing need in Ireland, for example, to
comply with EU legislation, requires greater cognisance by employers of employee needs.

5.9 Increase in certain types of sickness and disease

Lewis et. al (2001) point to an increase in certain types of sickness and disease as another
possible lever for change. This may take the form of an increase in sick leave absences
from work. In other contexts it is the spread of HIV/AIDS which affects many workers.
Furthermore, this disease has wiped out whole generations of carers, leaving grandparents
or extended family to raise children. Workplaces have to respond to these trends.

6. Key themes emerging from the literature

Some of the key themes that (re)occur in the literature on work-life balance have already
been discussed. The aim of this section is to provide a brief overview of the principal
themes and it is not therefore intended to be an in-depth literature review. Figure 2
provides a summary of the most frequently occurring topics, each of which will be briefly
discussed in turn below.

Figure 2 Key themes emerging from literature on work-life balance

18
6.1 Problems of definition/conceptual issues
Problems of defining and conceptualising work-life balance have been discussed earlier in
Section 4. Frameworks to provide the reader with the means of conceptualising work-life
balance issues from a number of different perspectives were also outlined in that section.

6.2 Factors influencing evolution of the concept of work-life balance

The principal factors influencing the evolution of the concept of work-life balance were
outlined in Section 5.

6.3 The issue of evidence

The main themes in this regard in the literature refer to evidence of availability of work-
life balance policies in organisations and evidence of take-up of the available
opportunities. Before turning to these two issues it is interesting to look at the availability
of actual evidence to suggest the presence or otherwise of work-life imbalance. Guest
(2001), again referring to the annual UK CIPD survey (see footnote 2) states that a
question in the survey for the years 1998 and 2000 asked respondents whether they felt
that they had the right balance between work and life outside work. The responses show
that 73% and 74% respectively felt that they did, which means that a minority of roughly
a quarter of respondents perceived an imbalance. This ties in with another piece of
research which found that an average of 23% of EU citizens complain that they are too
tired to carry out household tasks when they come home from work (Fisher, 2004).

However, he adds the caveat that while those in work may not experience an imbalance
there are others who believe differently. For example, “school teachers, aware that
children are not being encouraged by busy parents to complete homework, do believe that
the problem exists. So too may welfare workers, aware of the growth of alcohol and drug
abuse as a way of coping with the pressures of demands at home and at work.”(Guest,
2001:9).

6.3.1 Evidence of availability

Drew et al (2002: 24), draw on the work of Hogarth et al (2001) in relation to evidence of
availability of work-life balance arrangements. They (Hogarth et al) analysed WERS

19
data7 and found that while 90% of employers agreed that work-life balance arrangements
were beneficial to both employer and employee, only 62% of firms allowed their staff to
occasionally vary their working hours. Drew et. al. (ibid) conclude that “the proportion of
workplaces providing flexible working time arrangements other than part-time
employment was small” (Hogarth et al, 2001:11). Drew et. al (ibid.) point out that these
findings are supported by Evans, (2001:18) who concludes from his study of four
countries that “there is little clear evidence of significant growth in family-friendly8
arrangements.” He also concludes that family-friendly arrangements are more likely to be
found in the public sector, where there are no market pressures and a higher proportion of
women in the workforce. Within the private sector family-friendly arrangements are
more likely to be found in large unionised companies or in companies with higher
proportions of professional or technical staff.

In Ireland, Drew et. al (2002) addressed the issue of availability of flexible working in
their national survey of employers, to which 912 organisations responded (response rate
of 24%). The results highlighted the following:
• part-time working was available in 665 (73%) of the organisations to less than
15% of employees
• flexitime was available in 52% of organisations to less than 15% of employees,
• homeworking was available in 21/26% of organisations to less than 5% of
employees.

In conclusion then, the literature suggests that the availability of work-life balance
arrangements (though most of the research focuses on ‘family-friendly’ arrangements) is
limited. Drew et. al add the important caveat that the issue of access (i.e. conditions
imposed on take-up) must be considered in conjunction with considering availability of
work-life balance arrangements.

6.3.2 Evidence of take-up

Drew et al (2002:25), drawing on the work of Kodz et al (2001), conclude that “demand
for family friendly working arrangements is consistently shown to be high.” A survey of

7
An analysis of the UK work-life balance 2000 survey by Hogarth et al, on behalf of the Department of
Education and Employment, 2001.
8
Both Drew et. al. and Evans’ studies focus on ‘family-friendly’ rather than ‘work-life balance’ issues.

20
graduates from eleven countries undertaken by Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2000 found
that work-life balance was placed at the top of the wish list when selecting a job and
career (Fisher, 2004). Even though demand for work-life balance arrangements is high
(and availability low as shown in the last section), Drew et al (ibid) point out, that the
research shows that when flexible working practices are made available to employees,
take-up is low. They conclude that this suggests the existence of a ‘take-up gap’.

6.4 Business Case

Much is written in the literature in relation to the business case for work-life balance, a lot
of which lacks rigour in terms of hard evidence to back-up claims. Clutterbuck
summarises the situation neatly as follows:

Like anti-wrinkle cream, the virtues of work-life balance have been oversold. Many
enthusiasts talk as if there were a direct and obvious link between investment in work-
life balance and a direct bottom-line payback. The reality is that such evidence is very
hard to glean. Nonetheless the body of evidence supporting the implementation of
work-life balance policies is substantial - it is just almost entirely indirect in its impact.
What we are looking at is not a straight cause-and-effect interaction, but a chain of
events most, if not all, of which do seem to be convincingly linked (2003:14).
Most analysts agree therefore that some form of systematic on-going measurement is
needed in order to estimate the benefits/costs of introducing work-life balance policies.
This could take the form of tracking key indicators e.g. absenteeism, or figures for the
retention of staff that would otherwise have left. Drew et al (2002:23) highlight one study
(Dex and Smith, 2002) that sought to quantify benefits and their findings suggest that nine
out of ten firms with experience of family-friendly working arrangements found them to
be cost effective.

6.4.1 Potential benefits

Despite the lack of direct causative evidence a number of benefits for business have been
put forward in the literature which can be linked indirectly to the introduction of work-life
balance policies. These are summarised in the following list.
• Reduced casual sickness absences/reduced stress levels.
• Improved staff retention/lower staff turnover.
• Improved morale, motivation, commitment, productivity and creativity.
Potential cost savings (in the areas of recruitment and training costs of replacement staff,
increased return on investment in training and development if employees stay longer,
facilities costs in the area of telecommuting/home-

21
 • working/eWorking, reduced non-productive travelling time; lower sick pay and
health insurance for part-time workers).
• Attracting experienced workers back into the workforce.
• Enhanced corporate image/improved recruitment/the possibility of better
performance due to improved public image.
(The above list was compiled from Clutterbuck, 2003:Ch 1; Coughlan, 2000:10-11; Drew
et al, 2002; Fisher, 2004; IBEC, 2002; ICTU, 2002, WLBN, 2004)

6.4.2 Potential costs

There are also a number of potential costs to business highlighted in the literature and
these can be summarised as follows:
• administration costs in relation to rosters and salaries,
• record keeping for monitoring purposes,
• insurance, equipment and health and safety costs for e/home working,
• temporary cover for term-time working, career breaks, etc.,
• management training costs for work-life balance,
• child-care support, EAP programmes costs,
• cost of information gathering in relation to resources, referral services.
(The above list was compiled from Clutterbuck, 2003:Ch 1; Coughlan, 2000:10-11; Drew
et al, 2002; Fisher, 2004; IBEC, 2002; ICTU, 2002, WLBN, 2004)
One of the challenges therefore for business is to measure and monitor its cost/benefit
ratios in relation to work-life balance.

6.5 Challenges
The literature has no shortage of examples of the kinds of challenges that face both
organisations and employees in relation to work-life balance issues. Some of the most
widely cited are outlined hereunder, with organisational challenges separated from those
for the individual, though there may be considerable overlap in relation to some of these.
Ultimately, the challenge is one of balancing the needs of the institution with those of the
employee (both the employee who avails of arrangements and those who do not).

22
6.5.1 Challenges for organisation
One of the biggest challenges for organisations when considering work-life balance
policy is to “transform organisational culture to one where flexibility is seen as beneficial
to all, accessible on a fair and equitable basis within the organisational limits and
managed professionally” (WLBN, 2004: 17). The following are some of the challenges
faced by organisations which, if not addressed, can often become barriers to the
introduction of work-life balance policy and practice.
• Some organisations claim that there is no demand for work-life balance
arrangements amongst their staff.
• A difficulty exists in relation to quantifying benefits i.e. will the potential gains for
the organisation outweigh the administrative costs and disruption caused by
introducing work-life balance practices?
• There is a perceived problem of setting a precedent and thereby opening the
floodgates to unlimited demand.
• A fear exists that some employees will take advantage of policy and regard
‘flexible working’ as an entitlement for which no return to the organisation is
required.
• There is a problem of introducing the policies in a way that is perceived to be fair
and consistent for all staff (e.g. possible backlash from non-carers if
policies/arrangements are biased towards carers; how to decide which employees
should be granted flexibility in a situation where opportunity is limited).
• Related to the above point there is a fear that organisations may be opening
themselves to discrimination charges.
• Staffing issues become more complex particularly in relation to key roles and key
skills.
• Related to the last point, there are perceived difficulties in implementation, of
putting policies into practice, particularly at the line-management level.
• Increased administrative workload e.g. rescheduling work roles and updating
measurement data in terms of monitoring and evaluation.
(The above list was compiled from Clutterbuck, 2003:Ch 1; Coughlan, 2000:10-11; Drew
et al, 2002; Fisher, 2004; IBEC, 2002; ICTU, 2002, WLBN, 2004)

23
6.5.2 Challenges for employees
Some of the problems and challenges outlined above are also those of the employee,
particularly in the case of the line-manager who works at the implementation interface.
Further problems for the line-manager include:-
• lack of support from senior management,
• ambivalence or lack of clear guidelines about roles and responsibilities for
implementing work-life balance policies,
• his/her capacity to handle ‘people’ issues and to re-design roles and workloads
satisfactorily as a result of one or more employees working flexibly. (Drew et al,
2002: 26)

Research shows that it is the attitudes, skills and behaviours of line managers that
ultimately determine the success or otherwise of work-life balance policies. Furthermore,
in cases where line managers have not addressed existing excessive workloads of staff
and where last-minute, unpredicted tasks are a feature of their management style, the
introduction of work-life balance policies will further exacerbate problems. There is also
the issue of the line-manager wishing to avail of work-life balance arrangements and in
this regard, he/she will face the same challenges as those outlined below.

The initial challenge for any employee contemplating work-life balance issues is to take
control over his/her own life. The presence of work-life balance practices enables
employees to make decisions in accordance with their values. However, once that
decision is made there are further challenges to face.

Beginning with employees who may wish to avail of work-life balance arrangements the
most widely cited challenges in the literature are listed as follows:-
• non-supportive management (this relates to the final paragraph above);
• lack of knowledge with regard to the availability of work-life balance policies;
• lack of clear guidelines for taking up options;
• lack of supporting infrastructure and technology;
• heavy workloads, particularly if workloads are not reduced commensurately with
reduced hours for example;
• concern in relation to the reaction of managers and colleagues;

24
 • concern in relation to implications for career prospects and development
opportunities;
• financial constraints in relation to practices which would lead to a loss of income,
particularly amongst lower-paid workers and those in single income households.
(The above list was compiled from Drew et al, 2002; Fisher, 2004, WLBN, 2004)

From the perspective of colleagues of employees who take up work-life balance

arrangements, there are also challenges and possible concerns outlined in the literature as
follows:-
• potential unfairness arising in relation to take-up of work-life balance practices
(e.g. carer vs. non-carer, carer vs. carer, non-carer vs. non-carer);
• increased pressures in terms of longer hours and heavier workloads on those
working full-time;
• non-recognition in terms of rewards/career progression options for those who
choose not to avail of work-life balance arrangements.

As stated above the over-arching challenge for an individual employee is to take control
over his/her life. This involves a series of further challenges such as:
• understanding the various demands on one’s time, mental and emotional energy,
• being clear about priorities,
• spending reflective time to find ways to improve use of time/energy,
• managing expectations and accepting the consequences of choices,
• building resilience and ability to stick to choices. (Fisher, 2004)

It would be remiss to leave this section on employee challenges and choices without
referring to those employees whose choice it is to spend more time on work at the
expense of other activities. In a review of the literature, Peiperl and Jones (2000) note
that workaholics were previously considered as suffering from a disease akin to
alcoholism. More recent research (Scott, Moore and Miceli, 1997) however, links
workaholism to three relatively stable personality types, the achievement-oriented, the
perfectionist and the compulsive dependent. In the context of work-life balance it is
necessary to separate those employees who choose to work longer hours from those who
work longer hours against their will.

25
6.6 Case studies
There is no shortage of case-studies in the literature both in the International and Irish
contexts. Most of the research on work-life balance has emanated from such case studies.
The main themes to emerge in the literature as a result of these case studies are the subject
of this Section (6) of the report.

6.7 Guiding principles and recommendations for implementation

The literature abounds with guiding principles and recommendations for implementation
of work-life balance policy and practice. For every new case study, benchmarking
exercise or piece of research, a further set of recommendations is presented. The
following is an example of such a set of guidelines which are suggested in this case by
IBEC:
• evaluate the current situation,
• assess employees’ needs,
• identify resources/constraints,
• pilot project,
• develop policies,
• communicate policies to staff,
• monitor and review policies.
They further suggest the formation of a project team or a number of small working groups
to identify flexible options and explore implications of introducing the favoured options.
(IBEC, 2002:13). Most of the checklists which result from research and case-studies are
along similar lines to this one (e.g. Department of Trade and Industry (DTI, 2003) in UK).

Butler and Connolly (2003) suggest the following points for consideration in the
development of a legislative framework for the effective design and introduction of
family friendly policies (these points could also apply in the context of work-life balance
policies).
• Organisations must review the redistribution of the work of those employees
availing of Family Friendly Policies and replace people where necessary.
• The impact of Family Friendly Policies on rosters and shift patterns must be
planned for and organised.
• Timely responses to requests.

26
 • Family friendly proofing of collective agreements.
• Family Friendly Policies are a basic right and once developed should not be
removed.
• All policies to be jointly reviewed and monitored.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) (2002) has also produced a toolkit for trade
unions which contains a set of guidelines consisting of many of the elements outlined
already.

Coughlan (2000:58) goes on to provide a policy checklist which she takes from Eircom’s
‘Communication Guidelines for Flexible Working’. The following are the pre-requisites
for agreement between managers and employees when flexible working arrangements are
being considered.

• What are the core hours when an employee availing of flexible working
arrangements will be on hand?
• What will be the method of briefing on:
o new tasks?
o progress?
o continuing tasks?
• What will be the method of forwarding
o calls from office?
o urgent correspondence?
o other correspondence?
• How will phone calls, email, faxes outside core hours be dealt with?
• How and when will meetings be scheduled?
• How and when will problems relating to the flexible working arrangement be
discussed?
• How and when will technical issues be resolved?
• How and when will feedback and appraisal be given?
• How will access to appropriate training be ensured?
• How will sick leave be dealt with?
• How and when will annual leave be agreed and dealt with?

27
6.8 Strategic planning and management tools
As well as the guidelines described above, a number of strategic, detailed ‘tools’ or
frameworks have been developed to assist organisations in the implementation and
management of work-life balance policy and practice.

One such framework was outlined earlier in Section 4.3.3 where it was used as an aid
towards conceptualising work-life balance issues from the organisational perspective.
This work-life balance framework, which forms part of a diagnostic pack, is both useful
and relevant for the Irish context as it was developed by the Irish Work Life Balance
Network (WLBN, 2004). It presents an evolutionary framework for the development of
work-life balance ‘culture’ in an organisation and provides a clear and detailed
methodology for moving from the formative stage through to the mature work-life
balance organisation (Refer to section 4.3.3).

A somewhat similar framework was developed by the Work Life Research Centre9 in
Manchester Metropolitan University, which they describe as ‘a practical tool for
employers both large and small, offering a step-by-step approach to implementing a
work-life strategy’. It suggests a framework that includes three stages of development as
follows.
• Stage 1: Starting out
• Stage 2: Moving forward
• Stage 3: Leading edge

It also suggests six key issues for changes, which would indicate a way to put policy into
practice effectively. The six key issues for change are:
1. Strategy and objectives.
2. Culture and attitudes.
3. Policies and resources.
4. Communications strategy.
5. Management.
6. Working practices.

9
http://www.workliferesearch.org/wi.asp

28
A third useful model is the quality model for work-life balance developed by Clutterbuck
Associates (Clutterbuck, 2003). This was inspired in structure initially by the European
Foundation for Quality Management and its principal elements can be seen in Table 4.

Table 4 The quality model for work-life balance

POLICIES PROCESSES PEOPLE OUTCOMES
Time flexibility Work Role models For individuals
organisation
Location flexibility Technology Inform/educate/consult/empower For the organisation
Benefits and support HE systems Training For society/the
community
Measurement AUDIT FEEDBACK REVIEW
BENCHMARKING
Implementation RESOURCES BEHAVIOUR SUSTAINABILITY
PLANS
© Clutterbuck Associates 2003
Source: Clutterbuck, 2003:170.

Clutterbuck (ibid:169) states that this model:

….incorporates all of the critical elements required to design and implement an

effective approach to institutionalising good practice in managing work-life balance.
The key line is the top row and represents the steps in a quality model - policies,
processes to implement them, the human dimension, and measurable outcomes.

As well as the overarching blueprints described thus far, IBEC (2002) provide a
framework for carrying out an employee needs analysis, which would represent one step
in the early stage in the frameworks described above. They suggest the following format:
• examination of organisational structure (categorise jobs by division etc.);
• identify problem areas (ask managers to submit current data on employee
turnover, absenteeism, sick leave etc. and to identify problem areas);
• demographics10 (is there a correlation between problem areas and demographic
profile of department - e.g. distance from home, caring responsibilities etc.);
• audit past and present services (audit current family-friendly (see footnote 10)
practices and note level of interest and participation;
• data analysis (of data collected so far - is there a general need in the organisation
for alternative working arrangements?);
• employee needs survey (what are barriers they face? identify potential solutions?);

10
The focus of the IBEC (2002) publication is predominantly ‘family-friendly’ rather than ‘work-life
balance’ - despite its title.

29
 • review (analyse all data, evaluate and review);
• outcomes.

This section has reviewed some of the available strategic planning and management tools
for implementing work-life balance policies in organisations. There is no shortage of
clear, detailed, well-thought out blueprints. However, organisations must first
acknowledge and embrace the philosophy and culture of work-life balance.

7. NUI, Maynooth context

NUI, Maynooth has a staff of approximately 994 full-time staff11 and 5,500 students
(www.may.ie/collegeinfo). The figure for staff excludes Occasional Staff (e.g. those who
tutor/demonstrate; stack library shelves, or act as Computer Assistants on an occasional
basis). The full-time staff cohort breakdown by gender and contract type is shown in
Table 5.

Table 5 NUI, Maynooth full-time staff breakdown by contract type and gender, number
(February, 2005)
Permanent Temporary Total
Male 229 266 495
Female 224 275 499
Total 453 541 994

This year (2005) the University is introducing a Performance Management Development

System (PMDS) which will be phased in for all members of staff. This is a significant
undertaking for the University with potential to contribute to quality enhancement at
individual, departmental and institutional level. It is a developmental system, designed to
promote reflection and support achievement. It will also indirectly provide a formal
opportunity for all staff to consider and discuss their work-life balance needs.

In order to determine the nature of work-life balance culture in NUI, Maynooth it was
necessary to liaise with the Personnel Office on the one hand and to survey the views of
staff on the other. The results of the consultation process with staff are presented in
sections 8 and 9.

11
Data obtained from the Computer Centre in February, 2005.

30
All documents relating to work-life balance arrangements were gathered and a meeting
arranged with the Personnel Office in order to cross-check results and develop an
inventory. The results are presented in Table 6, which shows the work-life balance
arrangements that are available in NUI, Maynooth, distinguishing those that are statutory
from those that are not.

Table 6 Work-life balance arrangements available in NUI, Maynooth (*statutory and non-
statutory)
Flexible leave arrangements Flexible working time arrangements
Career breaks/sabbatical leave Part-time working
Carer’s Leave* Job sharing
Marriage leave Flexitime
Parental leave* Term time working
Paternity leave
Maternity leave* Other arrangements
Adoption leave* Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP)
Enhanced maternity/adoption leave Travel Pass Scheme
Exam and study leave Crèche/after school care
Force Majeure leave* Removal expenses
Compassionate leave Social Clubs
Staff Development
*statutory requirements

One of the objectives of this project was to develop a leaflet for staff, showing the work-
life balance arrangements that are presently available in NUIM and, following meetings
with the Personnel Office, this was agreed and has been completed12.

The Personnel Office do not actively promote work-life balance initiatives though details
of most arrangements appear on their website. Instead they are reactive, dealing with
applications from staff as they arise. They advise that their approach is a flexible one and
that they respond to staff on an individual basis. There is a danger that being too rigidly
policy-driven could undermine this flexibility.

In relation to the take-up of work-life balance opportunities, the statistics are set out
hereunder in relation to the principal initiatives availed of by staff in NUIM. Statutory
entitlements are not included.

12
See Appendix 1. Please contact me, at Ann.Coughlan@nuim.ie, or on (01) 7086287, if you would like to
receive a copy of this leaflet or alternatively you can download the leaflet from
http://qpo.nuim.ie/qpo/quality/balance.htm

31
 • Most members of the administrative staff avail of flexi-time. Both male and
female members of staff have taken up this initiative.
• Thirty members of staff have availed of, or are currently availing of, parental
leave. Of these, only two male staff members made application.
• Twenty members of staff job-share. All are female and are working as executive
assistants, administrative officers, lecturers, senior technicians, technicians and
principal technicians.
• Two female staff members have availed of term-time working.
• One staff member has availed of paternity leave.
In all, discounting flexi-time, only 53 staff have availed of flexible working arrangements
in NUI, Maynooth. This is in line with low take-up rates generally found in studies as
described in Section 6.3.2.

In relation to monitoring and evaluation, the Personnel Office keeps records of people
who avail of the various schemes. While they do not have any formal evaluation system
in place, they know from speaking to staff that they have found the arrangements to be
hugely beneficial.

A pilot project is currently underway on e-Working (i.e. working from home), under the
remit of the Human Resources Committee. E-working involves working at a distance, or
even a remote location, and using technology to ease communications. Most e-working
arrangements involve a combination of e-working and office based work.

A ‘Family Day’ was organised by the Personnel Office in 1997 for university staff and
their children and from feedback received, they consider this to have been very
successful. The National Framework Committee for Work Life Balance designated
Tuesday March 1st, 2005 as Work Life Balance Day. They encourage all organisations to
mark Work Life Balance Day in order to raise awareness of Work Life Balance in their
own workplaces. Suggested activities are available on their website at
http://www.worklifebalance.ie/WorkLifeBalanceDay. This is the fifth year that the day
has been celebrated. It was known as Family Friendly Workplace Day from 2001 to 2003
before it was changed to Work Life Balance Day last year. However, due to lack of

32
funds, the Personnel Office in NUI, Maynooth is unable to support events to mark this
day this year (2005).

8. Exploratory staff survey

Two questionnaires were designed for the purposes of surveying the staff in NUI,
Maynooth. This section reports on the first of these surveys describing the objectives,
methodology and findings. The final structure of the survey questionnaire and
accompanying introductory letter are attached as Appendix 2 and Appendix 3
respectively.

8.1 Survey objectives

As outlined earlier, the importance of understanding the needs and perceptions of staff in
NUI Maynooth, in relation to work-life balance issues, is a central objective of this study.
This initial exploratory survey sought to gain an understanding of the degree of awareness
and take-up of opportunities in NUI, Maynooth and the perceptions held by staff of the
culture prevailing in the University in relation to flexible working arrangements.

In order to facilitate the collection of data that might provide such an understanding13 a
questionnaire was designed and dispatched to a 30% sample of staff during May 2004.
The following sections describe the methodology and findings for this questionnaire
survey.

8.2 Survey methodology

8.2.1 Survey population and sampling procedure
The questionnaire was sent to a random, stratified sample of 30% of staff in NUI,
Maynooth. The Computer Centre at NUI, Maynooth facilitated the selection of the
sample from the central mailing lists, based on the following stipulated criteria:-
• the sample should reflect the gender breakdown of staff,
• the sample should reflect the staff employment category breakdown, and
• the sample should reflect extant contract-type ratios.

13
See also Section 9 - ‘Consultation Process’

33
8.2.2 Survey questionnaire design
The questionnaire was designed to achieve a trade-off between the maximisation of
meaningful information and an acceptable length in terms of the time it would take staff
to complete. A similar trade-off was made between the use of closed and open-ended
question formats.
The question structure reflects the objectives of the survey and questions were designed
to:-
• elicit perceptions and suggestions with regard to the culture of work-life balance
arrangements in NUI, Maynooth,
• assess the level of take-up of work-life balance arrangements amongst staff,
• obtain a profile of survey respondents.
The questionnaire14 is divided into three distinct sections to facilitate ease of completion.
These are:-
• About You.
• About Work.
• About Work-Life Balance.

8.2.3 Data collection and analysis procedures

The questionnaire was posted to 264 staff and accompanied by an explanatory covering
letter15. In order to encourage staff to complete and return questionnaires a prize16 of a
€100 voucher for the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre was offered, the winner to be chosen
from the names of those who returned completed questionnaires within the specified time
period.

Data was coded and subsequently analysed with the aid of SPSS (Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences) for Windows, the findings of which are described below.

8.3 Survey findings

In line with the objectives of the survey, as described earlier, findings will be presented in
question order under the following three headings:-
1. Respondent profile.
14
See Appendix 2.
15
See Appendix 3.
16
This also acted as a PR exercise for the project as the name of the winner was announced in the bi-
monthly ‘University News’, together with a short description of the project and a call for suggestions.

34
 2. Take-up of work-life balance arrangements.
3. Perceptions and suggestions with regard to the culture of work-life balance
arrangements in NUI, Maynooth.

8.3.1 Respondent profile

In all, 87 valid questionnaires were returned out of a total of 264 posted questionnaires.
This represents a 33% response rate. This figure equates with 10% of all staff (88017) on
the central mailing lists in the University18. An initial observation can be made
immediately in relation to the response rate. Two-thirds of staff chose not to respond to
the survey which indicates a certain apathy in relation to work-life balance issues.

Question 1 requested respondents to state their names: this question was optional and
was included solely for the purpose of identifying the winner of the draw.

Question 2 sought to elicit respondent gender. There were significantly more females
than males in the sample with female staff members accounting for 69% (60) of all
respondents and male staff members accounting for 31% (27), as shown in Table 7/Figure
3. Given that the breakdown between male and female staff in the university is about
equal (see Table 519) and that the target sample was stratified to reflect this distribution,
this gender imbalance in the sample begs the following questions:
1. Is ‘work-life balance’ seen as a ‘women’s only’ issue (i.e. women with children)?
(See discussion in previous sections, particularly in Section 4). This question is
somewhat answered in responses to Question 4 (see below) in that the majority
(53%) of women respondents did not have dependent children. Furthermore, 41%
of male respondents have dependent children. However, see also question 9.
2. Are women more interested in achieving work-life balance?
3. Do women perceive a greater work-life imbalance?
Further research would be needed to answer these questions fully.

17
As at time of survey.
18
An attempt is made to target all staff through the consultation process with the Partnership Committee.
See section 9 ‘Consultation process’.
19
This ratio also pertained at the time of the survey.

35
Table 7 Gender breakdown of sample, number and % of valid responses
No. respondents % respondents
Male 27 31
Female 60 69
Totals 87 100

Figure 3 Gender breakdown of sample, % of respondents

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
male female

Question 3 represented an attempt to categorise staff according to age category. Table

8/Figure 4 show the age structure of respondents, by gender. All age categories are well
represented with 53% of respondents in the 40-and- under age group and 47% in the over
40-year bracket. The largest male response rate came from the 31-40 year age cohort.
The female response rate was more evenly distributed across age categories.

Table 8 Age structure of sample by gender, number and % of respondents

Age Male Female ALL
No. % of % of all No. % of % of all No. %
sample males sample females
18-30 1 1 3 14 16 23 15 17
31-40 15 17 55 16 18 26 31 36
41-50 5 6 19 19 22 32 24 28
>50 6 7 23 11 13 19 17 20
Totals 27 31 100 60 69 100 87 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding

36
Figure 4 Age structure of sample by gender, % of respondents

40

35

30

25 18-30
31-40
20
41-50
15 >50
10

5
0
Male Female All

Question 4 asked respondents to state the number of dependent children they have in
the three age categories of pre-school, primary and post-primary. ‘Dependent’, in the
context of work-life balance, is defined in terms of demands on time for ‘care’.
University-going children are therefore excluded20. However there were 3 survey
respondents who contacted me in relation to this definition, pointing out the financial
constraints associated with university-going children and its restricting implications for
work-life balance options.

In all, 45% (39) of staff had children. These results are shown, cross-tabulated by gender
of respondent, in Table 9. More than twice as many female respondents (28) had children
of school age than male respondents (11). However, because of the gender bias in the
sample it is more meaningful to look at percentages of respondent groups. In this respect,
and as seen from Table 9, 41% of all male respondents had children of school-going age
compared to 47% of female respondents.

20
See Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) (2002) survey - page 90. Personal communication for
clarification on this matter with ICTU in May, 2004.

37
Table 9 Dependent children by gender of respondent, number and % of respondents
Female Male
Number % of % all Number % of % all
sample females sample males
Yes 28 32 47 11 13 41
No 32 37 53 16 18 59
Totals 60 69 100 27 31 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding

Table 10 shows the numbers of dependent children in relation to the work category of
respondents. It can be seen that the Academic category is the only one where there were
more ‘yes’ responses than ‘no’ responses. 51% of all academics have dependent children,
compared with 50% of staff from both the Library and Computer Centre categories, 41%
of Administrative staff and 33% of Technical Staff.

Table 10 Dependent children by work category of respondents, number of respondents

Children
‘Yes’ ‘No’ Totals
Administration 13 19 32
Academic 19 18 37
Computer Centre 2 2 4
Library 3 3 6
Technical 2 4 6
Other 0 2 2
Totals 39 48 87

The school category breakdown for all children of respondents is shown in Table
11/Figure 5. Over three quarters (77%) of the children of respondents are of pre-school
or primary school age. It is difficult to determine, without knowledge of the profile of all
university staff, whether this represents the average picture. The fact that University-
going children were excluded from the analysis automatically biases the figures in favour
of younger children.

Table 11 School category breakdown of dependent children, no. and % of all children
School category No. %
Pre-school 26 42
Primary 22 35
Secondary 14 23
Totals 62 100

38
Figure 5 Age category breakdown of dependent children, % of all children

45

40

35

30

25

20
15

10

0
Pre-School Primary Secondary

Question 5 asked staff whether they had anyone sick, elderly or disabled to look after or
give special help to. 13% (11) staff replied ‘yes’ to this question as Table 12 shows. 7%
(2) of all male respondents had caring responsibilities in this category compared to 15%
of all female respondents. This may reflect the continuation of the traditional female
‘role’ as carer. The majority of those with caring responsibilities (46%, or 5) come from
Academic categories of staff and this is followed by 36%, or 4 staff, from the
Administration category. These figures translate to 14% of all Academic staff and 13% of
all Administration staff with caring responsibilities for someone sick, elderly or disabled.

Table 12 Sick/elderly/disabled dependents by gender of respondents, number and % of

valid responses
Male Female ALL
No. % of % of No. % of % of No. %
sample males sample females
Yes 2 2 7 9 11 16 11 13
No 25 29 93 49 58 84 74 87
Totals 27 31 100 58 69 100 85 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding
∗Note: 2 people did not answer this question.

Question 6 related to the type of contractual arrangement that applied to the

respondents’ work. Table 13/Figure 6 show results. 87% of all respondents held
permanent contracts, with 13% holding temporary contracts. There was a greater
percentage of permanent contracts among the female cohort of the sample, with 90% of all

39
female respondents having permanent positions. The corresponding figure for male
respondents was 81%. Conversely, male respondents, as a % of the male cohort, therefore
had a greater percentage of temporary contracts at 19%.

With regard to work categories and contract type, all categories showed a majority of
permanent contract positions, with the exception of the Researcher/Post-Doctoral sub-
category which had a majority (80%, or 4) of temporary contract types. This is to be
expected given that post-doctoral positions are temporary by nature.

Table 13 Contractual arrangements in terms of permanent/temporary contract type, by

gender, number and % of valid responses
Contract All Male Female
Type
No. % No. as % of % of all No. as % of % of all
sample males sample females
Permanent 75 87 22 26 81 53 61 90
Temporary 11 13 5 6 19 6 15 10
Totals 86 100 27 31 100 59 69 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding
∗Note: 1 person did not answer this question.

Figure 6 Contractual arrangements in relation to permanent/temporary work, % valid

responses

100
90
80
70
60 Male
50 Female
40 All
30
20
10
0
Permanent Temporary

Question 7 was a further question in relation to contractual arrangements and asked

respondents to state whether they were working full-time or part-time. Results are
displayed in Table 14/Figure 7. In this instance a larger proportion of all male staff (96%,

40
or 26) had full-time positions compared to the female cohort, of which 85% (or 59) had
full-time positions.

All work categories consist of a majority of full-time employees. The largest full-time
majorities are to be found in the Academic category (97%, or 36) and the Administrative
category (81%, or 26). The Library category had the highest percentage of part-time
employees (33%, or 2). Within the Administrative category the ‘Executive Assistant’ sub-
category also had a high part-time percentage (31%, or 4).

Table 14 Contractual arrangements in terms of full-time/part-time work, by gender,

number and % valid responses
Contract All Male Female
Type
No. % No. as % of % of all No. as % of % of all
sample males sample females
Full-time 77 87 26 30 96 51 59 85
Part-time 10 13 1 1 4 9 10 15
Totals 87 100 27 31 100 60 69 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding

Figure 7 Contractual arrangements in terms of full-time/part-time work by gender, % valid

responses

100
90
80
70
60 Male
50 Female
40 All
30
20
10
0
Full-time Part-time

Cross tabulating these results with the results of the previous question gives the following
summary results in relation to contractual arrangements.
• 77% staff surveyed have permanent full-time positions.
• 12% staff surveyed have temporary full-time positions.
• 10% staff surveyed have permanent part-time positions.

41
 • 1% staff surveyed have temporary part-time positions.

Respondents were asked to state their current work category and grading in Question 8.
Results are shown in Table 15/Figure 8. Academic staff formed the largest cohort
accounting for 43% of respondents. This category was comprised of 2 Professors, 30
lecturers, and 5 researchers/post-doctorates. The next largest grouping was the
administrative category, accounting for 37% of the total and comprising of 13 Executive
Assistants, 8 Senior Executive Assistants and 11 Administrative Officers. The remaining
20% was made up of the following staff groupings:- Technical 7% (6 Technicians),
Library 6% (3 Library Assistants and 3 Assistant Librarians), Computer Centre 5% (4
Advisors), Other Services 2% (Security and General Services).

Table 15 Respondents’ work categories by gender, number and % respondents

Work Category ALL Males Females
No. % No. % % No. % %
responses category responses category
Academic 37 43 18 21 49 19 22 51
Administration 32 37 3 3 9 29 33 91
Technical 6 7 4 5 67 2 2 33
Library 6 6 0 0 0 6 7 100
Computer Centre 4 5 1 1 25 3 3 75
Other Services 2 2 1 1 50 1 1 50
Totals 87 100 27 31 31 60 69 69
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding

Figure 8 Respondents’ work categories, % of respondents

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Academic Administration Technical Library Computer Other
Centre Services

42
In terms of gender breakdown (refer to Table 15) there was an almost even breakdown in
both the Academic and Other categories. 100% of respondents in the Library category
were female and 91% of those in the Administration category were female. Over two-
thirds (67%)of the Technical category was made up of male respondents while three
quarters (75%) of the Computer Centre category were female. Again, without access to
detailed records relating to staff category/gender ratios, it is not possible to state whether
or not these figures reflect general patterns in the University.

8.3.2 Take-up of work-life balance arrangements

Question 9 asked staff to state whether or not they had availed of any work-life balance
organisational supports or initiatives. Table 16 shows that one third (33%) of respondents
had availed of some form of flexible arrangement. Therefore, two-thirds of respondents
had not availed of any initiatives. This prompts a question in relation to whether or not
this 66% of people are happy with their present state of work-life balance. Alternatively,
it could indicate that they:
(a) are not aware of work-life balance initiatives,
(b) have experienced difficulty with regard to accessing initiatives,
or,
(c)have difficulty finding initiatives to suit their needs.

Of those 33% who had availed of initiatives, 6% (5) were male and 27% (23) were female
as shown in Table 16. There was a higher percentage of take-up amongst women, with
39% of the female cohort having availed of some initiative compared with 19% of the
male cohort. Of the sample, 54% of those with dependent children took up an initiative
and 45% of those with responsibility for sick/elderly/disabled people availed of
arrangements. 80% of males who availed of work-life balance arrangements had children
compared with 74% of females.

43
Table 16 Take-up of work-life balance arrangements, by gender, % of valid responses
Take-up of All Male Female
WLB
No. % No. as % of % of all No. as % of % of all
sample males sample females
Yes 28 33 5 6 19 23 27 39
No 58 67 22 26 81 36 42 61
Totals 86 100 27 31 100 59 69 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding
∗Note: 1 person did not answer this question.6

The particular schemes/arrangements availed of are shown in Table 17. Some

respondents had availed of more than one scheme. 30% of initiatives availed of (Parental
Leave and ‘additional unpaid leave following birth of child’) related directly to childcare
responsibilities. All of this leave was availed of by women, which once again suggests a
continuation of the traditional role of women as carers. Flexi-time is the most availed of
option and since this is not available to Academic staff, and two-thirds of all males are in
that category, this automatically ensures a higher female take-up. Similarly, because
there are higher percentages of women in the Administration category, there was a higher
chance of more women availing of the relevant job-sharing scheme.

Table 17 Work-life balance arrangements availed of by staff, by gender, number and % of

mentions
Work Category Numbers %
Male Female All All
Flexi-time 1 8 9 27
Parental Leave 0 7 7 21
Job Sharing Scheme for Administrative Staff 0 5 5 15
Sabbatical 1 2 3 9
Shorter working week 1 1 2 6
Job Sharing Scheme for Library Staff 0 1 1 3
Term Time Working Scheme 0 1 1 3
Extra unpaid leave on ad-hoc basis after each of children born 0 1 1 3
Ad-hoc arrangements to facilitate caring needs 1 0 1 3
Unofficial term time while not permanent from HOD 0 1 1 3
Compassionate leave/support 1 0 1 3
Half-time work 0 1 1 3
Totals 5 28 33 100
∗Note: percentages may not add up due to rounding
∗Note: 1 person did not answer this question.

Staff in all work categories, except the Other Services category, availed of work-life
balance arrangements. The highest take-up rate was found within the Library category
with 67% (4) of that category availing of initiatives. Half (2) of those in the Technical

44
category had taken up an arrangement and twelve staff (39%) from the Administration
category had availed of supports. At the lower end of the take-up scale, 25% of Computer
staff had taken up an initiative and finally the lowest take-up rate of 24% came from the
Academic category. This category has a lower percentage of female respondents (51%)
than the Administration category (91%) which may also be a factor though this is
contradicted by the fact that 33% of the Technical category is comprised of female
respondents (though n=6 in this case). The fact that staff from the Academic category
have the highest proportion of caring responsibilities in terms of dependent children and
sick/elderly/disabled persons (see Questions 4 and 5), it is surprising that this category
also has the lowest take-up of supports. However, it could be argued that academic staff
have a certain amount of in-built freedom, particularly in relation to temporal and spatial
flexibility. A further clue to this comparatively low take-up rate may be found in the
results to Question 10 below.

8.3.3 Perceptions and suggestions with regard to work-life balance culture in NUI,
Maynooth

Question 10 asked respondents to state the degree to which they agreed/disagreed with
the following statement:-
I am aware of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life balance
Results are shown in Figure 9 with 55% of respondents agreeing (10% agreeing strongly)
and 45% of staff disagreeing (12% disagreeing strongly). This represents a high
percentage of staff who are not aware of the initiatives that exist and points to a failure in
the communication and provision of information on the part of the University.

45
Figure 9 Awareness of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life balance, %
valid responses

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
agree strongly agree disagree disagree strongly

∗Note: 1 person did not answer this question

A gender analysis of the response to this question provides interesting insights. Figure 10
shows that the majority (65%) of female respondents agreed with this statement, with
14% agreeing strongly. Conversely, the majority (64%) of male respondents disagreed,
with 22% strongly disagreeing. As well as suggesting a general lack of information on
initiatives, as referred to above, the gender imbalance in perceptions could suggest that
either
(a) male staff have not perceived as high a need for flexible working arrangements
and have therefore not made enquiries (though this is not to suggest that one should
have to make enquiries before being made aware of options),
or
(b) the prevailing culture in NUIM in relation to work-life balance initiatives implies
that work-life balance is not as relevant an issue for men.

46
Figure 10 Awareness of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life balance,
response rates as % all males and % all females (valid responses)

60

50

40
% all males
30
% all females
20

10

0
agree strongly agree disagree disagree strongly

When the results for this question are cross-tabulated with results relating to whether staff
have dependent children or not, there is no remarkable difference between the views of
those who do have dependent children and those who do not. 59% of staff with
dependent children agree or agree strongly with the statement, while 53% of staff without
dependent children agree or agree strongly. When gender is examined in relation to
dependent children there is a higher degree of disagreement (22%) amongst women
without dependent children than for women with dependent children (14%). For the male
cohort, amongst whom there are higher levels of overall disagreement, 33% of men
without dependent children disagree or disagree strongly compared to 30% of those who
do have dependent children. This further suggests that work-life balance in NUIM is still
seen in terms of ‘family-friendly’ issues and as an issue for mothers of young children.

In relation to perception and category of work, Table 18 shows the breakdown of the
agree/agree strongly ratio to the disagree/disagree strongly ratio within each category.
The Library category is most aware of the provision made by the University in terms of
flexible working arrangements and this ties in with their high level of take-up of
arrangements. (See Question 9 above). The Academic category is the only one where
there are more people who disagree than agree (65% to 35% respectively) with the
statement. If staff in the academic category are not aware of the provision that the
University makes to accommodate work-life balance arrangements, this may help to
explain the low-take up levels for this category (See Question 9). It is difficult to

47
understand why they should be less aware than staff from any of the other categories,
unless, as hypothesised in results to Question 9 above, they have not needed to actively
seek out work-life balance supports, due to the relative flexibility they enjoy in their type
of work.

Table 18 Ratio of agree/agree strongly to disagree/disagree strongly, % of respondents by

category, in relation to awareness of provision made by NUIM to accommodate work-life
balance
Agree/ Disagree/
Agree Strongly Disagree Strongly
Academic 35 65
Administration 71 29
Technical 67 33
Library 83 17
Computer Centre 75 25
Other 50 50

Question 11 posed another statement as follows:-

It seems to me that NUIM views flexible working arrangements positively
This question related to the perceived culture in NUIM with regard to flexible working
arrangements. 86% of staff agreed with this statement, with 15% strongly agreeing, as
can be seen in Figure 11. 14% disagreed, with 2% of staff disagreeing strongly with the
statement.

Figure 11 NUIM views flexible working arrangements positively, agreement/disagreement,

% of valid responses

80

70
60

50
40

30

20

10
0
agree strongly agree disagree disagree strongly

∗Note: 5 people or 6% did not answer this question

48
With regard to this question, both the majority of males (88%, or 22) and the majority of
females (84%, or 48) are in agreement with the statement. Similarly, there is a majority
in favour of the statement within all of the work categories. The highest level of
agreement occurred within the Computer Centre and Technical categories where there
was 100% agreement. This was followed by the Administration category (87% in
agreement), the Library category (83% in agreement) and the Academic category (82% in
agreement). Only the Other Services category had an equal number agreeing and
disagreeing but it must be noted that in this case n=2.

It would seem then that while just over half (55%) of staff are aware of the provision
made in terms of flexible working arrangements (see Question 10), a much higher
majority of staff (86%) are happy with the attitude of the University to flexibility in work.
Since the majority of those who are less aware of the provision made by NUIM are male
and/or belong to the Academic category, this would suggest that the gap in awareness
does not pose a major difficulty for either of these two groups in that it does not affect
their perception of NUIM’s attitude to flexible working arrangements. However, this
generalisation reflects the views of the majority and the subtleties described above in
relation to the minorities, some of which are quite significant, cannot be ignored.

The final question (Question 12) asked staff to offer suggestions with regard to other
organisational work arrangements/supports, which would improve their work-life
balance. 61 staff (70%) answered this question and a wide range of comments were
made, with four people making more than one suggestion. In all 65 comments were
made and these are loosely categorised under a number of headings as seen in Table 19.

49
Table 19 Suggestions/comments with regard to other organisational work arrangements/
supports which would improve WLB for staff, % of mentions
Suggestion No. %
Information/Overall policy
briefing/clearer communication re work-life balance options 3 5
current policies discriminate against single staff 3 5
policies should apply to temporary contract holders 1 2
too much depends on HOD/Line Manager i.e. some very facilitating, others not 2 3
WLB opportunities are not a realistic option in understaffed departments.
Provision of extra staff in itself could ease pressure experienced by staff. 3 5
financial commitments do not allow staff to consider WLB options 1 2
when leave (e.g. paternal, parental etc.) is availed of, research time is squeezed
and this is not taken into consideration in publications lists 1 2

Variations/suggestions in relation to existing flexible arrangements/schemes

fairer pension arrangements for those working 4-day week 1 2
extend shorter working week option 3 5
flexi time should be available to all 2 3
term-time working should be available to all 1 2
term time should be available to job sharers 1 2
allow parental leave to be taken on drip basis over longer period 1 2
career break/job sharing for academics 2 3
be allowed to work part-time on more permanent basis 1 2
provision for when elderly parent(s) is/are sick 1 2
up to 5 years career break (as for civil service) 1 2
better resourced crèche/more places/more after-school care 5 8
4-day week without job share arrangements 1 2
half-time contract with proviso that Head of Department sees it as half-time 1 2
allow study leave 1 2
allow increased annual leave for extended service 1 2

Suggestions in relation to existing work practices which would facilitate

greater work-life balance
early Friday finish - in line with other institutions 1 2
activities should not be scheduled for evenings/weekends 1 2
more notice of shift changes/overtime 1 2
new university appointments to allow for promotion possibilities 1 2
start lectures earlier to leave by 3 or 4 1 2
fairer distribution of evening teaching amongst all staff 1 2
allow block teaching to allow time to focus on research 1 2
provide more support for teaching to facilitate research 1 2
extra admin support -but only for very active research departments and holders
of large grants 2 3
align study weeks/breaks with similar breaks in schools 1 2
timely publication of key dates (e.g. exam dates, board meetings etc.) 1 2
allow longer time between finish of exams and submission of results 1 2

E-work
allow e-work/telework from home 1 2
maintain existing e-working arrangements for academics 1 2

Staff Development
more personal development options from QPO 1 2

50
 Table 19 continued……….
funded adult education/professional development/‘alternative’ options outside of
work hours, outside university 2 3

Social
events to facilitate interaction/communication with other staff in college 1 2
activity weekends away for staff e.g. hillwalking, watersports etc. 1 2
‘Family Friendly’ days (in summer/Christmas holiday periods) 1 2

No Changes
greatly appreciate present support 2 3
happy with options currently available 2 3
not an issue for me at the moment 3 5
Totals 65 100
∗Note: 26 people (30%) did not answer this question or answered invalidly

The most frequently recurring response (accounting for 8% of all responses) related to the
crèche21 facilities with calls for a better-resourced crèche with greater capacity and
extended after-school care. The following four suggestions/comments accounted for a
further 20% of all responses (5% per suggestion).
• Briefing/clearer communication re work-life balance policies.
• Current policies discriminate against single staff.
• WLB opportunities are not a realistic option in understaffed departments. Provision
of extra staff in itself could ease pressure experienced by staff.
• Work life balance is not an issue for me at present.

All remaining responses made up no more than 3% per response. The large variety in
responses to this question highlights the complexity of work-life balance issues. Many of
the themes touched on in previous sections from the review of the literature on work-life
balance are echoed in the comments (e.g. ‘family-friendly’ vs. ‘work-life balance’; lack of
communication in relation to policies; the role of the line manager; pressure of work;
equity of access etc.).

21
Since the survey, an allocation of €1 million for major improvements in the NUI Maynooth crèche was
announced by Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell TD on Friday 4
March. The money – which is part of a EU strategy to bring childcare in Ireland up to a better standard –
will be used by the NUI Maynooth crèche to enlarge and expand facilities. The crèche, which was set up in
1977, currently caters for 62 children, from babies up to after-school.

51
8.4 Conclusions from exploratory survey
As stated at the outset, this initial exploratory survey sought to gain an understanding of
the degree of awareness and take-up of opportunities in NUI, Maynooth and the
perceptions held by staff of the University culture in relation to flexible working
arrangements.

This analysis represents the views of 10%22 of staff in the University at the time of the
survey. This represents a 33% response rate from the sample surveyed. There were twice
as many females as males in the sample, although the survey was sent to a carefully
stratified sample. However, an effort was made throughout analysis to correct for this by
showing proportionate results for males/females wherever possible.

With regard to contractual arrangements, the majority of staff held permanent and full-
time positions. All work categories were represented with 80% of respondents belonging
to the Academic and Administration categories.

53% of staff were in the under 40-age cohort with 47% in the 41-and-over age group.
Male respondents had a slightly younger profile with 58% aged 40 and younger,
compared to 49% of women. 43% of all staff had dependent children (41% of males and
47% females) and 13% of respondents had additional caring roles (7% of males and 16%
females). The Academic category of staff had the highest proportion of caring
responsibilities, though just 51% of this category was made up of female respondents.
The Library and Administration categories had the highest proportions of female
respondents at 100% and 91% respectively.

A third of all respondents had taken up work-life balance arrangements, 6% of all males
and 27% of all females. In all 54% of those with dependent children and 45% of those
with other caring responsibilities availed of initiatives. 39% of all women had availed of
one or more arrangements, 74% of whom had dependent children. This compared to 19%
of all men availing of arrangements, 80% of whom had dependent children. Take-up

22
It is acknowledged that this is a small sample from which to generalise. However, because of the results
of the consultation process (see Section 9), greater emphasis was placed on analysis of this survey in an
effort to take the views of staff into consideration in so far as was possible.

52
occurred across all work-categories with the highest take-up rate (67%) in the Library
category and the lowest take-up rates (24%) amongst Academic staff.

A high proportion of staff (45%) were not aware of the provision that NUIM makes to
accommodate work-life balance, particularly male staff of whom 64% were unaware
compared to 35% of female staff. Staff in the Academic category are least aware with
only 35% aware of the provision made (compared to over 50% in all other categories). A
majority (86%) of staff, both male and female, across all staff categories, agreed that
NUIM as an organisation views flexible working arrangements positively.

Finally, a wide range of suggestions and comments were made as was seen in Table 19.
No one category of responses formed a substantial majority. At 8%, responses relating to
the crèche facilities comprised the largest grouping. Following this there were 4
categories comprising 5% each of all suggestions/comments.

The nature of this survey was exploratory and as such it provided some clues for further
research. The low response rate (33%) to the survey suggests a certain apathy amongst
staff in relation to work-life balance issues. Overall, it can be said that communication
and awareness-raising with regard to work-life balance arrangements has been poor. This
may be symptomatic of wider communication problems within the University (see
Section 9). The production of a leaflet summarising work-life balance initiatives in NUI,
Maynooth, which was an output of this project (see Section 7, footnote 12 and Appendix
1) should go some way towards addressing this problem. However, it would need to be
regularly updated and redistributed and also form part of the induction pack for new
entrants.

The fact that respondents view the organisation in a favourable light and perceive a
generally positive attitude towards flexible working arrangements on the part of the
University certainly provides a strong foundation on which to build. Take-up of flexible
working arrangements was relatively low, and arrangements mostly availed of by female
staff with children. Although this is in line with findings in the literature it would be
interesting to ask a question in a future survey relating to satisfaction levels with current
work-life balance. Without knowledge of demand it is not possible to determine whether
a take-up gap exists or not.

53
One conclusion may be that the findings from this survey suggest that the culture of
work-life balance in NUI, Maynooth is at the early formative and planning stages. When
compared to the continuum of change outlined in Table 2, NUI Maynooth has most of the
characteristics of the formative stage. The fact that the majority of staff consider the
University in a positive light in relation to its attitude to flexible working arrangements
may have more to do with the particular flexible nature of much of the work in
universities, rather than to a well-developed work-life balance culture. Furthermore,
flexibility in itself does not automatically guarantee ‘good’ work-life balance if staff feel
overburdened with heavy workloads. Further research would be needed to investigate
this latter point. The fact that staff retention is not a problem for the University might
suggest that staff are, in fact, broadly satisfied. Consequently there is no impetus for on-
going (re)development of retention strategies through, for example, evolving work-life
balance initiatives.

A second conclusion, it could be argued, is that NUI, Maynooth has not moved on from
the ‘family-friendly’ to the ‘work-life balance’ arena and this is backed up by the findings
of this survey. Work-life balance is still seen very much as an issue for mothers of
dependent children. This excludes a large proportion of staff and prompts further
investigation. Many organisations (see Section 10 below on ‘Case Studies’) have now
moved on from work-life balance issues to the even broader issues of ‘health and
wellbeing’ (having initially started with ‘family-friendly’ issues). Therefore it is timely to
consider the development of a workable planning framework for work-life balance in the
University, or alternatively to begin with ‘health and well-being’ issues, of which work-
life balance and family-friendly are both components.

The results of this survey could definitely form a springboard from which to develop the
kinds of surveys/research instruments23 needed at the early stages of a development
framework for work-life balance culture in NUI, Maynooth. This will be discussed
further in the conclusion to this project (see Section 11 below).

23
E.g. Employee Needs Analysis, as described in Section 6.8.

54
9. Consultation process through Partnership Committee
As outlined earlier, the survey described in Section 8 was intended to be an initial
exploratory survey. The intention was to offer all staff a chance to express their views at
a later stage. The vehicle chosen to facilitate this process was a second survey which
would be distributed to all staff in the University. The distribution process was to be
facilitated through consultation, via the University’s Partnership Committee, with the
various stakeholders in the University. This would also act as a PR exercise for the
project.

To this end, agreement was reached with the Secretary of the Partnership Committee, who
was most accommodating and interested in the project, and a presentation24 was made to
the committee on 15th June 2004. A brief overview of the project objectives and
methodology was provided and a request made that the Partnership Committee lead the
consultation process through canvassing the opinions of committee members’
constituents. Surveys were provided to each member for onward distribution.

It was decided to use a survey in order to make it easy for committee members and to
facilitate aggregation and analysis of results. The survey25 was similar in design to the
exploratory survey, though it sought to quantify the level of awareness and to assess
demand for various work-life balance initiatives.

The results of the consultation process were very disappointing. In all 14 surveys were
returned, all from one department in the University. Through informal discussions with
staff throughout the University, it would appear that the surveys were not distributed by
the Partnership Committee members (apart from one member). This raises questions
about the accountability of this committee’s members to those they purport to represent
and particularly in relation to the efficacy of its role as a communication channel within
the University. Needless to say, there are no results to report for this part of the project
which is indeed disappointing. However, it could perhaps be concluded that because of
recent rapid growth, the University has outgrown its existing communication structures.
This in turn may provide partial explanation in relation to the lack of awareness of work-
life balance initiatives amongst staff, as reported in the survey findings (see Section 8).

24
See Appendix 4.
25
See Appendix 5.

55
In order to overcome this obstacle of lack of results from the wider consultation process a
greater emphasis was placed on the analysis of the exploratory survey (see Section 8) and
on the case-studies (see Section 10).

10. Case studies

A principal aim of this project was to explore and evaluate the nature of work-life balance
culture in NUIM. In this regard, one of the objectives was to evaluate how we compare to
other organisations by carrying out a number of case-studies. This section reports on the
findings of this exercise.

10.1 Methodology
Because of the wealth of case-studies already in the literature, careful consideration was
given to both the selection of cases and the direction of this component of the project. It
was decided that in order for any learning to occur at least some of the organisations
surveyed should display excellence in an area related to work-life balance. A trawl of the
Internet and literature ensued and a myriad of data on ‘Top Companies to Work for’ was
perused. Among this data were the following:-
• The Great Place to Work® Institute Europe, an affiliate of a U.S. based research
and management consultancy of the same name which researches what it is that
makes organisations good places to work. It also produces annual ‘best
companies’ lists. The Great Place to Work® Institute also gives awards in
particular areas, one of which is work-life balance.
• The Sunday Times ‘100 Best Companies To work For’.
• Discovery/Irish Independent Best Companies to Work for in Ireland Competition.
• FÁS (The National Authority for Vocational Training and Education) Excellence
Through People Awards.

As well as these lists the size of the organisation and the nature of business, provided
further criteria for selection purposes, with the aim of including a mix of business
types/organisation sizes. Furthermore, the organisations that received funding from the
Framework Committee in the previous year were considered on the basis that they had
spent money on work-life balance related projects and would therefore have put some

56
thought into the topic. Finally, for direct comparison purposes other universities were
targeted.

Based on these criteria the following mix of organisations was chosen:-

MBNA Ireland was deemed best company to work for in Ireland in 2004 (Great
Place to Work® Institute Europe). It is a large multinational financial institution
and has 1100 staff in Ireland.
Trócaire was ranked amongst the top 10 organisations for ‘Best Work/Life
Balance’ in Ireland in 2004 (Great Place to Work® Institute Europe). Also in that
year they were ranked in the Top 10 of the Discovery/Irish Independent Best
Companies to Work for in Ireland Competition and received an outstanding
achievement award for Pride in the Workplace. In the same awards in 2003 they
were ranked 1st as the organisation where staff most look forward to coming to
work and 1st for organisations where staff are proud of their contribution to the
community. They hold the FÁS Excellence through People Award. They were
also awarded funding under the National Framework Committee in 2003. They
are a small, non-governmental organisation with 100 staff.
Hilton Hotel Dublin was also one of the top 10 organisations for ‘Best Work/Life
Balance’ in Ireland in 2004 (Great Place to Work® Institute Europe). It was also
ranked amongst the top ten workplaces in Ireland and won the award Best
Company 50-250 staff. It is a small organisation in the hospitality industry with
135 staff in Dublin.
Western Care Association, Castlebar, Co. Mayo. They were awarded funding
under the National Framework Committee in 2003. Medium-sized voluntary
organisation with 550 staff.
Intel, Leixlip was chosen for its proximity and word-of-mouth referral. Large
software multinational.
University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork -
fellow Universities.

Each of the above organisations was contacted and given a brief overview of the project.
Interviews were requested and general areas for exploration outlined. No response was
received from MBNA or from the Western Care Association, despite a number of follow-
ups by phone, fax and in writing. Intel would not offer me an interview as they felt that

57
the subject matter was sensitive - they referred me to their website. Interviews were
scheduled with the remaining organisations and these took place in May/June 2004.

A semi-structured, open-ended interview technique was used to allow the interviewees to

speak freely and to explore themes and issues which might not be uncovered in a highly
structured, conventional questionnaire. Interviews were loosely structured to reflect the
key objectives of the case studies and a number of guiding questions26 were developed as
follows:
• What kinds of resources/planning does your organisation put into work-life
balance issues?
• What work life balance initiatives have you put in place?
• Did you undertake any consultation process with staff?
• How do you disseminate information?
• What do you consider to be the most important issues in relation to work-life
balance?
• What kinds of tensions/challenges have arises and what is the best way to tackle
these?
• Do you have any plans for further development in this area?
• Do you have any advice/learning for other organisations?
Findings are presented in the next section.

10.2 Principal findings

This section will not go into a detailed profile of each of the organisations visited - these
details are readily available elsewhere. However, when, for example, size may be a
determining factor in relation to a finding, this will be highlighted. Instead, the most
helpful and interesting points to emerge from the interviews will be extracted and
presented under the headings for each organisation.

Trócaire
Trócaire have just over 100 staff in 4 centres (Maynooth, Dublin, Belfast and Cork).
They set up a working group to look at work-life balance issues and this is made up of
staff, union and HR representatives. They have already carried out a study into stress and
its causes amongst a sample of their workforce, which was funded by the National

26
See Appendix 6.

58
Framework Committee in 2003. Their work, by its nature, dealing with human tragedy,
natural disasters and emergencies is extremely stressful. They consider organisational
culture to be the most important factor in the work-life balance equation. As an
organisation they have very open lines of communication and a good rapport exists
between all staff, which is further facilitated by frequent social events. They do not have
a leaflet/booklet outlining the initiatives in place and did not think this necessary.
Because of their NGO (non-governmental organisation) status, funds are limited and
producing a booklet for the sake of it would not be considered a prudent use of funds. In
any case, the size of the organisation and the culture of trust mean that such a leaflet is not
needed. Furthermore, each staff member is known personally to the HR Manager.

Some of the outcomes of their study on stress included the setting-up of a quiet room in
their workplace and the introduction of de-briefing sessions for staff upon return from
overseas trips. They also have on-site yoga, tai-chi and massage on a continual basis
throughout the year during working hours. Staff clock out for these sessions. The fact
that they are available during the working day means that more staff avail of initiatives,
than might do if they had to make arrangements after work themselves. Furthermore, it
helps to ensure that the workplace remains relatively stress-free.

The most important issue from Trócaire’s perspective in relation to work-life balance is
the culture of the organisation. If there is a culture of trust and open communication
which facilitates dialogue and discussion, a balance can be found to ensure flexibility that
is beneficial to both the staff and the organisation. The size of the organisation in this
case is relevant of course, but Trócaire have been very successful in identifying the
particular needs of their workforce and following through with relevant, accessible
initiatives. They are now moving on to look at broader health and wellbeing issues.

The Hilton Hotel

The Hilton Hotel (Dublin) has 135 staff and the representative that was interviewed again
stated that the culture of the organisation was of paramount importance. Work-life
balance issues are part of the remit of the HR department (which has 3 staff) and their
primary aim is to ensure that every staff member feels valued. Indeed, a look at the
website before visiting the Hilton gave this impression. Because of the staff retention
problems associated with the hospitality sector in general, work-life balance policy is

59
given top priority. The HR department works hard at trying to create an open culture.
This begins with staff induction and continues with a monthly staff presentation, co-
ordinated by HR, which also acts as a forum for communication. In addition they
promote an open-door policy and are located at the centre of the hotel. Twice a year they
carry out an employee survey to evaluate satisfaction levels, assess training and
development needs etc. The survey is anonymous and they must achieve a response rate
of at least 100 completed questionnaires!

The HR department places a lot of emphasis on training and development, which is also
part of its remit. They have computer rooms and an intranet in the hotel from where staff
from all categories can participate in courses organised by the Hilton University. Staff
are encouraged to so participate and if they complete 3 courses in the Hilton University
the hotel will then sponsor them to do an external course of their choice outside the hotel.
The HR department holds a series of ‘open days’ throughout the year and offers all staff
intending to take on an internal course the opportunity of attending a one-hour
familiarisation session. They can also complete these courses from their homes and in
this case the hotel pays the licence fee which allows students to access the relevant
learning packages on-line.

Other initiatives include family days, flexible times and job share arrangements, together
with a very good quality subsidised canteen. Staff can avail of excellent discounted rates
in Hilton Hotels throughout the world. The HR department hold star-sign birthday
lunches at which the General Manager presents each member of staff, whose birthday
falls within the particular star sign in question, with a birthday scroll. It is felt that this is
a very important occasion especially for the large numbers of foreign staff who often
experience loneliness - especially on their birthdays. They also offer a paid day off to
parents for a child’s first day at school and a day off when a staff member becomes a
grandparent. Similarly, there are also discretionary extra days available to single staff.
The HR department has a policy of trying to come up with something new every year.

In terms of offering advice the HR department at the Hilton Hotel says that they never say
‘no’ to a request. There is always room for negotiation and if the problem is well-
researched it is always possible to find alternatives and compromises. They state that the
nature of their business allows them to be quite flexible. Again, the interviewee stressed

60
the importance of an open culture and communication, both of which are pre-requisites
for mutual trust. Without this it would not be possible to seek solutions and deepen their
work-life balance culture. The Dublin HR office has the benefit of drawing on the
expertise and experience of their international offices and the HR manager frequently
attends HR meetings in the UK. There are also international and European forums. The
Hilton Hotel Dublin, like Trócaire, are now moving on to look at health and wellbeing
issues, of which work-life balance issues are a sub-section.

University College Dublin

University College Dublin (UCD) has approximately 3,000 staff and 22,000 students.
Work-life balance comes under the remit of the Personnel Office and they have been very
active and innovative in trying to develop the foundations for a work-life balance culture
in the University.

Recognising the need for a sound research base, the Personnel Office approached the
Psychology Department in 2001/2002 and offered to support and supervise a graduate
student who might be interested in the work-life balance area. A student signed up who
was undertaking her MA in Social and Organisational Psychology and writing her thesis
on work-life balance. Under the joint supervision of her department and the Personnel
Office, a component of her research involved sending a survey to all 3,000 staff in UCD.
She achieved a 20% response rate, which was disappointing, but unfortunately the survey
went out during the summer months. Nevertheless, each category of staff was well
represented in the sample.

She explored the issue of work-life conflict and found that a myriad of variables such as
age, gender, job-type, care responsibilities, years worked, having a spouse/partner (or not)
etc. influenced the degree of conflict experienced in different ways. In other words the
experience of conflict is entirely subjective. This once again highlights the complexity of
work-life balance issues.

Her main findings can be summarised in the following 4 points:

1. There is a lack of awareness amongst staff in UCD with regard to what is available.
2. A major obstacle highlighted was the inflexible attitudes of heads of departments/line
managers.

61
3. There is a perception of unfairness across job categories/contract types (e.g. permanent
vs. contract staff; services vs. academic staff).
4. Finally, she highlights what she calls the ‘academic dilemma’. Academics in the
university suffer extreme work overload and there is a serious long-hours culture
prevailing in academic departments. This is totally incompatible with any kind of work-
life balance and needs to be addressed separately and urgently.

The Personnel Officer that I spoke to presented the findings of this survey to the Human
Resources Committee, the Equal Opportunities Committee and the Deans. From the
Equal Opportunities Committee the report was to go to the Governing Authority and a
steering group/committee for work-life balance was to be established. However, this
process was stopped in its tracks with the arrival of the new president, who is considering
disbanding many committees. She also developed and produced a small booklet showing
the work-life balance arrangements available in UCD. She then advised management that
this booklet would be going out to all staff and invited them to a launch event, advising
them that they would need to know how to manage policy in this regard. She explicitly
opened the door and invited management to liaise with Personnel, particularly in relation
to any perceived problems.

From her experience to date in the area of work-life balance she advises that awareness
and continuous training are the key issues. Training of managers and line managers is
crucial to the whole process. She admitted that at first she was unsuccessful in attracting
management to any work-life balance event. Her advice in this regard is to incorporate
work-life balance into all other courses and workshops for Heads of Departments and
managers and she finds that it fits very neatly within Leadership courses. However, she
advises that there must be a ‘port of call’ for management and a back-up support
structure, which in the case of UCD, is provided by the Personnel Office. Introducing
work-life balance issues without such a support structure in place could jeopardise the
entire future for work-life balance in an organisation and is akin to courting disaster. She
has been able to diffuse potential problem areas by working slowly through issues with
resistant managers to reach compromises. She advises that no one-size fits all and that
negotiation is the best way forward.

62
Because of the situation described above with the committees, she is unsure of what the
future holds. However, she is pressing ahead and intends to run a number of pilot
projects in departments where she has the co-operation of management and staff. From
there, having developed pockets of good practice, it is hoped that she can slowly roll out
the project to other departments. In the meantime, she is moving on to a new project on
Health and Wellbeing in the Workforce which is being funded by the HEA’s (Higher
Education Authority’s) ‘Training of Trainers’ fund. This new project will tie in with and
encompass her work on work-life balance.

In a more recent discussion with the interviewee, she informed me that the Personnel
Office in UCD marked ‘Work Life Balance’ (2005) day by sending a letter to all staff
explaining how UCD supported initiatives and giving details on how to access more
information. They invited all staff to two lunch time workshops, which were facilitated
by an external facilitator, on Work-life balance: how to get the balance right. The
workshops were very popular and they had waiting lists for both. She advises that it has
taken this long to make people aware of the issues and it is only now that she is beginning
to see dividends from her work.

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has a staff of approximately 1800 employees. From 2001
the Staff Office have been producing a leaflet which shows work-life balance/family
friendly initiatives available in TCD and this is regularly updated. The Personnel Officer
who initiated the development of this leaflet spoke to me about work-life balance
initiatives in TCD. They are at the very early stages in the process and their focus is still
primarily related to family-friendly initiatives. A working group was set up to examine
family-friendly/work-life balance issues. This is a subgroup of Partnership with Equality.
As well as facilitating the production of the leaflet they got the teleworking arrangement
approved by the University Board in 2001, whereby staff can work partly in college and
partly from home. Formulating this policy took up a lot of their time and they drew on
research in the UK.

They have not had any formal consultation process with staff, though they have included
a call for staff suggestions on the back of their leaflet showing the initiatives available in
TCD. She hopes that further development will involve a revamping of the working group

63
and a re-focusing of attention on work-life balance. The most important issues in her
opinion are fairness and transparency. There has been a tendency towards tension
between support staff on the one hand and academic staff on the other. Critical to the
success of work-life balance policy is the interface with Head of Department - there are
some Heads who are more aware and more open to ideas of work-life balance, but on-
going training is essential for most staff at management level. A few problems have
arisen between members of staff and their immediate manager, but when the Personnel
Officer sat down with both parties it was possible to reach a mutually agreeable solution.
While the introduction of a progressive policy of work-life balance would certainly result
in more work, the interviewee felt that potential existed for the reduction of this workload
through:
(a) an appropriate and on-going training programme for management, which would
reduce problems at the interface, and
(b) automation of many of the more routine tasks involved.

Finally, she mentioned that they are in a position to draw on the work of Dr. Eileen Drew
and her team in TCD, who carry out research into work-life balance issues (see Drew
2003; Drew et. al., 2002).

University College Cork

The Department of Human Resources in University College Cork (UCC) was awarded
the FÁS Excellence Through People Award. I spoke to the Equality and Welfare Officer
from the HR Department. In UCC, the issue of work-life balance comes under the remit
of ‘Health and Welfare’. It is felt that this is more encompassing and inclusive approach
as it deals with a wide range of issues which can affect the health and welfare of staff and
would include work-life balance broadly. In 2002 they pulled out all the stops and had a
week-long health and welfare programme of events to create awareness. They now
organise a similar programme regularly and also organise one or two initiatives per month
on an on-going basis.

They have set up a steering sub-group under Equality and Partnership, with the latter
enabling staff consultation. At the moment they are at the information gathering stage
and are in dialogue with both HR and staff in an effort to determine needs. The aim is to
produce a background paper to start debate. They are also researching ‘welfare’ issues

64
and particularly ‘offices of welfare’ in the United States. It is hoped that the results of
this process will guide the subgroup towards deciding on its terms of reference.

Because they are at the early stages of development there was not a lot of advice from
lessons learnt to date. However, the interviewee stressed the importance of starting from
a solid foundation, backed up by research. The establishment of a steering committee is
crucial.

10.3 Case study conclusions

The first consideration with regard to the case studies outlined here is that they represent
the perspectives of the relevant offices with responsibility for work-life balance issues in
particular organisations, and not the views of all the staff in those organisations. The
latter would be a prerequisite for a more detailed and balanced report. Furthermore, it is
evident that there are certain factors which influence the ease of introduction and
management of policy, particularly that of size of organisation (as in the case of Trócaire
and the Hilton Hotel) which facilitates a more personal and open management style.
Other factors include the availability of support and learning from international branches,
of which the Hilton Hotel has had the benefit. Universities, by their nature, are complex
institutions with a wide cross-section of staff. Nevertheless, as can be seen from the
university case studies, there are those that have put a lot of thought and effort into work-
life balance and related issues.

Bearing the above points in mind, a number of valuable lessons can be learnt, and indeed
are given a degree of legitimacy in that many of the same issues (re)emerged in the
literature, as was seen in previous sections of this report. Furthermore many of the points
(re)occur throughout the different case studies. These can be summarised in the
following points.
• the ‘culture’ of an organisation is of paramount importance and includes issues
surrounding communication, transparency, trust, fairness, etc.;
• it is important that there is a steering group set up, backed by relevant research, to
initiate debate in the organisation and to take the process forward thereafter in a
structured way;
• support, back-up and training for line management is crucial to the success of any
policy;

65
 • awareness raising is important;
• solutions appropriate to the needs of staff in a particular organisation are more
meaningful than random ‘policy bundles’;
• problems surrounding excessive work-loads must be addressed first;
• there is the possibility that much of the feared additional workload associated with
the administration of work-life balance initiatives could be automated.

The above points are particularly relevant for NUI, Maynooth which, in comparison to
most of the organisations in the case studies, is at the early stages in relation to the
development and planning of work-life balance issues. There will be further discussion
relating to these matters in Section 11 below.

11. Project conclusions and recommendations

This section will provide an overview of the project, draw together some conclusions in
relation to work-life balance culture in NUIM, and present a summary of critical issues
for the development and management of work-life balance policy. Finally, a number of
recommendations for possible further development trajectories will be presented.

11.1 Project overview and conclusions

This report has provided an introduction to ‘work-life balance’ issues and a preliminary
exploration of ‘work-life balance’ culture in NUI, Maynooth. Sections 1, 2 and 3
provided a brief introduction to the project and outlined the aims and objectives together
with the associated methodology for their achievement. Section 4 outlined the
complexities and difficulties involved in trying to define and conceptualise ‘work-life
balance’. It also provided a number of frameworks from which to view and understand
work-life balance issues. Finally, it provided a brief overview of work-life balance issues
in the Irish context. Section 5 presented an overview of the factors which have influenced
the evolution of the concept of ‘work-life balance’, and the key themes to emerge from
the literature were outlined in Section 6.

Sections 7, 8 and 9 focused on the NUI, Maynooth context and presented the findings of
an exploratory staff survey and a wider consultation process through the Partnership
Committee. Finally, Section 10 presented the findings from five case studies.

66
As a point of departure it can be concluded from this preliminary exploration of work-life
balance culture in NUI, Maynooth that we are at the early formative stages in the
development and planning process, when compared with development models of best
practice (see, for example, Table 2) and with the organisations surveyed for the case
studies in Section 10. Survey findings too indicate that work-life balance is mostly seen
in terms of ‘family-friendly’ policy bundles in NUIM, a fact that again ties in with the
early formative stage.

In relation to the exploratory staff survey two-thirds of the sample (66%) chose not to
respond which indicates a certain degree of apathy with regard to work-life balance issues
in the University. A major obstacle in this study was communication failure in relation to
the consultation process with the Partnership Committee (see Section 9). This meant that
the objective of giving all staff an opportunity to participate was not achieved. It was
tentatively concluded that because of recent rapid growth, the University has outgrown its
existing communication structures. This in turn may provide partial explanation in
relation to the lack of awareness of work-life balance initiatives amongst staff, as seen in
the survey findings (see Section 8).

While there were both low levels of awareness and low levels of take-up of work-life
balance arrangements, there was a high level of satisfaction with the attitude of the
university to flexible working arrangements. Notwithstanding that this is indeed positive,
it should be remembered that it represents the views of just 10% of staff, 43% of whom
are Academic staff whose work has a certain degree of in-built flexibility. Universities by
their nature are both particular and complex organisations with a wide variety of staff
categories, a large proportion of which are flexible due to the nature of the work.
Furthermore, flexibility in itself does not automatically guarantee ‘good’ work-life
balance particularly if such flexibility is undermined by heavy workloads. Further
research would be needed to investigate whether or not this is the case.

Related to the last point, the fact that staff retention is not a problem for the University
might suggest that staff are, in fact, broadly satisfied. Consequently there is no impetus
for urgent, on-going (re)development of retention strategies through, for example,
evolving work-life balance initiatives.

67
11.2 Critical issues for the development and management of work-life balance policy
This section draws on previous sections and extrapolates the key issues for consideration
in the development and management of work-life balance policy. These are presented in
a bulleted list as follows.
• ‘Work-life balance’ as a concept is complex and difficult to easily define. ‘Good’
work-life balance is highly subjective and involves making choices based on an
individual’s values and beliefs (see sub-Sections 4.1 and 4.2).
• The WLBN (WLBN, 2002) provides a useful framework (see Table 2), which can
be used as a means of conceptualising work-life balance issues from the
organisational perspective. It also provides both a diagnostic tool and a
developmental tool (see Section 4.3.3).
• ‘Work-life balance’ policy includes ‘family-friendly’ policy but is not restricted to
it. Work-life balance is not just an issue for mothers of young children (see
Section 4.1). Policy must reflect this inclusivity.
• In Ireland, debates on work-life balance tend to focus on the need for a national
childcare strategy. Changes in the economy, the structure of the workforce and
commuting patterns are amongst the factors that have promoted this issue to the
forefront of policy debates (see Section 4.4).
• Research shows that demand for work-life balance arrangements is consistently
shown to be high, and that availability of such arrangements is low. However,
when flexible working arrangements are introduced, take-up is subsequently low.
A take-up gap exists therefore and invites further investigation (see section 6.3). It
could be that there are issues and conditions around access to arrangements or that
existing arrangements do not meet the needs of employees.
• With regard to the business case for work-life balance, research shows that there
are convincing links between the investment in work-life balance arrangements
and a direct bottom-line payback (see Section 6.4).
• There are challenges and potential conflicts associated with work-life balance
issues for the organisation, the employee wishing to avail of work-life balance
arrangements and the colleagues of those who avail of facilities (see Section 6.5).
Ultimately, the challenge is one of balancing the needs of the institution with those
of the employees (both those who avail of arrangements and those who do not).

68
 • The culture of the workplace is possibly the most important determinant of work-
life balance and much more important than work-life balance policy bundles. (See
section 4.2 and Section 10).
• Problems surrounding excessive workloads must be tackled first.
• There needs to be buy-in from senior management in the University and a clear,
well-debated development structure in place. There must be a locus of
responsibility for driving the process forward. There is no shortage of examples of
frameworks in the literature (see Sections 6.7 and 6.8).
• The attitudes, skills and behaviours of line managers ultimately determine the
success, or otherwise, of work-life balance policies.
• There needs to be a programme of on-going training in place for management.
• Line managers need clear guidelines and a back-up, support structure.
• There is a need for awareness-raising campaigns which target all staff but only
after the appropriate structures and training programmes have been put in place.

11.3 Recommendations
Based on the critical issues outlined in the above section and taking into consideration the
formative stage that NUI, Maynooth is at in relation to the planning and development of
work-life balance issues, a number of recommendations can be made. Since the majority
(86%) of staff view the University’s attitude to flexible working arrangements in a
positive light, and staff retention is not a problem, there is leeway to take some time and
develop future policy in a considered way and within a defined framework, rather than
rushing in and adopting an ad-hoc approach of merely ‘adding on’ arrangements from
time to time, primarily in response to legislative requirements. In other words, there is a
good opportunity to tackle the issue at the level of cultural change within the University.
With this in mind, the following suggestions are put forward.

1. That this paper be forwarded to the appropriate committees (e.g. HR, Equality,
Partnership) to inform debate on work-life balance policy issues in NUI,
Maynooth at all levels.
2. That future work adopt a practical tool to help it move forward. Such a
development/planning framework, for example, with defined tasks and deadlines
for the development of work-life balance policy, is described in the WLBN

69
 diagnostic pack (see Table 2, Section 4.3.3 and also Sections 6.7 and 6.8). This
would take a period of years rather than months, and would break down perceived
obstacles into manageable tasks.
3. That the Personnel Office (or other relevant office/work-life balance co-ordinator)
provide a back-up service to Heads of Departments/Line Managers and assume
responsibility for the resolution of difficult cases. This Office would also have
responsibility for the monitoring, evaluation and assessment of policies and for
initiating appropriate action based on results thereof.

The above process would ensure a clearly defined, time-bound approach to work-life
balance policy in the University. Some recommendations for future work within such a
defined framework are presented hereunder.
4. The process could develop in parallel with the forthcoming PMDS (Performance
Management Development System) in relation to employee needs assessment,
which is a pre-requisite in any development framework for work-life balance.

5. On-going awareness programmes could be put in place for middle-management to

enable them to work constructively with requests for atypical patterns of working.
These programmes may have to be incorporated into other management training
events in order to ensure buy-in. As seen throughout this report, it is important
that managers and heads of departments have the skills and awareness to be able to
put in place flexible working arrangements for staff. Such awareness programmes
may need to include:
• an appreciation of the long-term benefits of implementing work-life
balance arrangements,
• a discussion of work-life balance issues in a wider context than simply
‘family-friendly’ i.e. an issue perceived as one for women with young
children only,
• a recognition that productivity is not necessarily a function of time spent in
the work place but rather energy invested in work.

6. In tandem with the last point, further development activities could be continued at
this stage to enhance reflection and understanding of work-life balance issues.
One of the objectives of this project was to undertake some preliminary

70
 development activity (see Table 1). The leaflet described in that table was
produced (see Appendix 1) and the Springboard personal development
programme for women was successfully completed. Preliminary project
dissemination events were also organised when the report was nearing completion,
one for management and the other for all staff. Despite widespread publicity there
was little interest in either event. This is further testament to a degree of apathy
amongst staff in relation to work-life balance issues.

In relation to recommendations 5 and 6, the findings of this research project suggest that
it is more productive to carry out training and development activity after debate has taken
place, senior management is on-board, a planning and development process is established
and a support structure/co-coordinating body is in place. The staff survey findings (see
Chapter 8) indicate that there is a low level of awareness amongst staff of work-life
balance arrangements. A strategy for NUIM therefore might be to adopt
recommendations 1 to 3 as above, to endorse the existing provision through circulation of
the leaflet, and to consolidate awareness via existing management education e.g. through
integrating work-life balance awareness into PMDS and other evolving management
systems.

Because of the particular nature of universities as organisations and the wide diversity of
working conditions that exist it should be recognised that a solution for one staff member
may not be necessary or feasible for others. Additionally, any work-life balance policy
consideration must be integrated with all of the other policies of the University e.g.
Dignity and Respect, Equality, PMDS etc. In response, it is suggested that work-life
balance policies and procedures should address each case in a flexible manner in
consultation with the staff member and management, and that the complexity of such
decisions be made apparent. Indeed, as pointed out earlier, there is a danger in being too
rigidly policy-driven as this could undermine the required level of flexibility.

Work-life balance policies are most likely to be successfully mainstreamed in

organisations which have a clear understanding of their business rationale and which
respect the importance of work-life balance for all employees. Whatever the chosen
course, it is hoped that this research project report will form a stepping stone in the

71
process and provide a basis for reflection and debate on work-life balance issues in NUI,
Maynooth.

72
Bibliography

BOND, S., HYMAN, J., SUMMERS, J. AND WISE, S. (2002) Family-friendly working?
Putting policy into practice. YPS for the Policy Press in association with JRF (Joseph
Rowntree Foundation).

BUTLER, I. AND CONNOLLY, G. (2003) Initiating change: unions developing work life
balance. Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

CLARK, S.C. (2000) Work/family border theory: a new theory of work/life balance.
Human Relations, 53, 6, 747-770.

CLUTTERBUCK, D. (2003) Managing work-life balance. A guide for HR in achieving

organisational and individual change. CIPD, London.

COUGHLAN, ANNE (2000) Family-friendly/work-life balance policies. IBEC, Dublin.

CULLEN, K., KORDEY, N., SCHMIDT, L. AND GABOARDI, E. (2003) Work and family in
the ework era. Ios Press, Amsterdam.

DEMPSEY, A. (2004) So how balanced is your life? Irish Times, February, 25th.

Department of Trade and Industry, UK (2003) http://164.36.164.20/work-

lifebalance/how_dev_intro.html.

DEX, S. AND SCHEIBL, F. (2002) SMEs and flexible working arrangements. The
Policy Press in association with JRF (Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

DEX, S. AND SMITH, C. (2002) The nature and pattern of family-friendly employment
policies in Britain. The Policy Press in association with JRF (Joseph Rowntree
Foundation).

DEX, S. (2003) Families and work in the twenty-first century. Joseph Rowntree
Foundation.

DOOLEY, C. (2004) Flexibility needed to retain staff. Irish Times, May 18th.

DREW, E., MURPHY, C. AND HUMPHREYS, P. (2002) Off the treadmill: achieving
work/life balance. National Framework Committee for Family Friendly Policies,
Dublin.

DREW, E. (2003) Flexibility in the workplace: contributing to work life balance? in

proceedings of 3rd Annual Work Life Seminar ‘Developing a Work Life Balance
Programme’, 17th October, River Court Hotel, Kilkenny.

ESRI (2004) The changing workplace: a survey of employees’ views and experiences.
National Centre for Partnership Performance (Research Series Number 2).

ESRI (2004) The changing workplace: a survey of employers’ views and experiences.
National Centre for Partnership Performance (Research Series Number 3).

73
EVANS, J. M. (2001) Firms’ contribution to the reconciliation between work and
family life. Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers, No. 48, OECD,
Paris.

FANNING, M.T. (2003) Work and family balance in the ework era, in proceedings of
3rd Annual Work Life Seminar ‘Developing a Work Life Balance Programme’, 17th
October, River Court Hotel, Kilkenny.

FINE-DAVIS, M. (2005) Working parents: four country comparative study, in, Equality
News, Spring 2005.

FISHER, H. (2004) IUTN workshop: Work-Life Balance. 8th September, Dublin.

FISHER, H. (2000) Investing in People: Family-friendly work arrangements in small

and medium sized enterprises. The Equality Authority, Dublin.

FITZPATRICK, N. (2005) Work life balance: the challenges, in, Equality News, Spring
2005.

GUEST, G. (2001) Perspectives on the study of work-life balance. A discussion paper

prepared for the 2001 ENOP Symposium, Paris, March 29-31.

GUEST, G. (2002) Work and the meaning of life. Roffey Park Institute. Downloaded
from www.roffeypark.com 15 May, 2004.

HOCHSCHILD, J. (1997) The time bind: when work becomes home and home becomes
work. Henry Holt and Co., New York.

HOGARTH, T., HASLUCK, C. AND PIERRE, G. ET AL (2000) Baseline study of work-life

balance practices in Great Britain, on behalf of the Department of Education and
Employment, London.

HOLMQUIST, K. (2001) Stressed for Success. The Irish Times, February, 28th.

IBEC (IRISH BUSINESS AND EMPLOYERS CONFEDERATION) (2002) Family-

Friendly/Work-Life Balance. IBEC Research and Information Services.

IRISH CONGRESS OF TRADE UNIONS (ICTU) (2002) Family friendly working & work
life balance guidelines. ICTU, Dublin.

IRISH TIMES (2005) Childcare needs, Opinion, Saturday, March 26th.

JONES, A. (2003) About time for change. The Work Foundation, in association with
Employers for Work-life Balance. London.

KARPF, A. (2002) Time to get a life. The Guardian, February 28th.

KODZ, J., HARPER, H. AND DENCH, S. (2002) Work-life balance: beyond the rhetoric.
Research Report no. 384, Institute for Employment Studies, Brighton.

74
LEWIS, S., SMITHSON, J., COOPER, C. AND DYER, J. (2001) Flexible futures: flexible
working and work-life integration. Summary of findings from stage one of project.
Work-Life Research Centre, UK.

LEWIS S.; RAPOPORT R.; AND GAMBLES R. (2003) Reflections on the integration of
paid work and the rest of life. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18 (8) 824-841.

MAHONY, A. (2002) An exploratory study of work-life balance arrangements in

University College Dublin. Unpublished MA thesis.

MCCARTNEY, C. (2003) Work-life balance: a guide for organisations. Roffey Park

Institute. Downloaded from www.roffeypark.com 14 May, 2004.
PEIPERL, M. AND JONES, B. (2000) Workaholics and overworkers: productivity or
pathology? Working Paper, Centre for Organisational Research, London Business
School, London.

PILLINGER, J. (2001) Work/life balance: finding new ways to work. Paper

commissioned by PCS, Inland Revenue and TUC as part of the Our Time project for
Inland Revenue staff seminars, Brighton and Worthing, 15th October.

POWER, E. (2004) State heading for childcare crisis. Irish Times, March 3rd.

RAPOPORT, R., BAILYN, L., KOLB, D., FLETCHER, J. (1997) Relinking life and work.
Innovations in Management Series, Pegasus Communications, Waltham, MA.

ROFFEY PARK INSTITUTE (2003) Work-life balance: a more imaginative approach to

working practices. Downloaded from www.roffeypark.com 14 May 2004.

RYAN, A.B. (2002) Balancing your life: a practical guide to work, time, money and
happiness. The Liffey Press, Dublin.

RYAN, A.B. (2003) Working with a philosophy of enough, in proceedings of 3rd

Annual Work Life Seminar ‘Developing a Work Life Balance Programme’, 17th
October, River Court Hotel, Kilkenny.

SCOTT, K., MOORE, K. AND MICELI, M. (1997) An exploration of the meaning and
consequences of workaholism. Human Relations, 50, 3, 287-314.

TAYLOR, R. (2002) The Future of work-life balance. ESRC Future of Work

Programme Seminar Series.

TIMESONLINE (2003) Leaders of the pack. March, 2nd.

TIMESONLINE (2003) The flexible firm wins on all fronts. March, 2nd.

TIMESONLINE (2003) Time is better than money. March, 2nd.

TULGAN, B. (1996) Managing Generation X. Capstone, Oxford.

75
WESTWOOD, A. (2002) Is new work good work? The Work Foundation (Current
Affairs Series), London.

WORK LIFE BALANCE NETWORK (2004) Work Life Balance Diagnostic Pack. An
outcome of a research and development process undertaken as part of the work of the
Work Life Balance Network (WLBN) Development Partnership under the EQUAL
Community Initiative Programme.

WTO [World Tourism Organisation] (1999) Changes in leisure time: the impact on
tourism. World Tourism Organisation, Madrid.

YEANDLE, S., PHILLIPS, J., SCHEIBL, F., WIGFIELD, A., AND WISE, S. (2003) Line
managers and family-friendly employment. The Policy Press in association with JRF
(Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

Websites accessed

http://www.wlbn.net/index2.htm

www.familyfriendly.ie

www.families-project.com

www.workliferesearch.org

www.leeds.ac.uk/esrcfutureofwork

www.worklifebalancecentre.org

www.jrf.org.uk

www.socialdialogue.net

http://www.workliferesearch.org/wi.asp

www.roffeypark.com

http://164.36.164.20/work-lifebalance/how_dev_intro.html

www.intel.com

76
 Appendix 1 Work Life Balance Initiatives Leaflet

Leaflet can be downloaded from http://qpo.nuim.ie/qpo/quality/balance.htm

77
 Appendix 2 Exploratory Survey

Quality Promotion Office

National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Work-Life Balance

A. ABOUT YOU

1. Name:_______________________________________________________________

2. Gender Male Female

3. Age 18-30 31-40 41-50 >50

4. How many dependent27 children do you have? (Please fill in number of children in
each applicable category in box provided)

Pre-school age Full time primary education Secondary education

No dependent children

5. Do you have anyone sick/elderly/disabled whom you look after/give special help
to?
Yes No

B. ABOUT WORK

6. Which of the following contractual arrangements applies to your work?

Permanent contract Temporary contract Occasional staff

7. Are you working full-time or part-time?

Full-time Part-time

8. Please indicate your current work category and grading

_______________________________________________________________________
(e.g. executive assistant, admin officer 1, senior lecturer, advisor 2, library assistant, senior technician, etc.)

27
‘dependent’, in the context of work-life balance, in terms of demands on time for ‘care’ (university-going children are
therefore excluded)
 Appendix 2 Exploratory Survey, page 2

C. ABOUT WORK-LIFE BALANCE

9. To what extent do you agree with the following statement?

I am aware of provision that NUIM makes to accommodate work-life balance

Agree strongly Agree Disagree Disagree strongly

10. To what extent do you agree with the following statement?

It seems to me that NUIM views flexible working arrangements positively

Agree strongly Agree Disagree Disagree strongly
Don’t Know

11. Have you availed of any work-life balance organisational supports/initiatives in

NUIM? (e.g. parental leave, flexi-time, career break, term-time working, etc.)

Yes No

If yes, please specify initiative(s)

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

12. What (other) organisational work arrangements/supports would improve work-

life balance for you?

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. Please return to: -

Dr. Ann Coughlan

Quality Promotion Office
Humanity House
NUIM

Please note that views expressed in this questionnaire will not be used other than in this
exploratory project. Names will not be used for any purpose other than prize draw!

79
 Appendix 3 Letter accompanying Exploratory Survey

Tuesday, 11 May 2004

Members of Staff
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Dear Colleague

Work-Life Balance28 policy in NUIM

I am presently working on a project to explore the nature of ‘Work-Life Balance’ culture in

NUIM. This project is one of a series of projects that are being implemented by the Equality
Authority and funded by the National Framework Committee for Work Life Balance. The
Committee was established under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and continues
under the current National Agreement, Sustaining Progress. It is chaired by the Department of
Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Work life balance policies are described as follows:-

those policies which help workers in combining employment with their family life, caring
responsibilities and personal and social life outside the workplace. This definition includes
statutory entitlements such as maternity, adoptive, force majeure, parental and carer's leave
and other non-statutory measures such as childcare and employee assistance schemes.
(www.worklifebalance.ie)

As a starting point I would like to survey the opinions of staff and in this regard I attach a short
exploratory questionnaire which will help me to understand the degree of awareness and take-up
of opportunities in NUIM and what, if anything, work-life balance means at the individual level.

I would be very grateful if you could take the time to complete this questionnaire. As an
incentive, we will hold a draw for a €100 Liffey Valley voucher! One lucky winner will be
chosen from the names of those who have returned completed questionnaires on or before
Tuesday, 25th May.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation,

Yours sincerely,

Ann Coughlan
Quality Promotion Office

28
The term ‘Work-Life Balance’ was adopted in labour market analysis to replace the term ‘Family Friendly
Initiatives’ in order to include employees who were not in a traditional family role.

80
 Appendix 4 - Handout for Partnership Committee

Partnership Committee Meeting, 15th June 2004

Work-Life Balance: project overview

Context
The Quality Promotion Office is presently undertaking a modest project to explore work-
life balance culture in NUIM. This project is one of a series of projects that are being
implemented by the Equality Authority and funded by the National Framework
Committee for Work Life Balance. The Committee was established under the
Programme for Prosperity and Fairness and continues under the current National
Agreement, Sustaining Progress. It is chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and
Employment.

Work-life balance: a definition

From an employer’s perspective, ‘work-life balance’ means putting in place working
arrangements and policies which assist workers in combining employment with other
responsibilities and choices. They also benefit employers by helping them to develop a
more productive and committed workforce.

A definition of work-life balance policies is provided on the website of the National

Framework Committee for Work Life Balance Policies, as follows:-
those policies which help workers in combining employment with their family
life, caring responsibilities and personal and social life outside the workplace.
This definition includes statutory entitlements such as maternity, adoptive,
force majeure, parental and carer's leave and other non-statutory measures
such as childcare and employee assistance schemes.
(www.worklifebalance.ie)

Project stages
The project can be broken into the following stages:-
• Context setting/literature search,
• Information gathering/benchmarking,
o Personnel Office,
o exploratory survey to random sample of 30% of all staff,
o meetings with other universities/organisations,
• Consultation through partnership committee with various stakeholders in
University,
• Recommendations,
• Dissemination/Development activities.
 Appendix 4 - Handout for Partnership Committee, page 2

Partnership Committee and consultation process

I would like to request that the Partnership Committee lead the consultation process
through canvassing the opinions of committee members’ constituents. In this regard I
have drawn up a short survey which members can use. This will facilitate aggregation
and analysis of results. I WOULD ASK THAT EACH MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE
TAKE A BUNDLE OF THESE SURVEYS AND FORWARD TO ALL THOSE STAFF
MEMBERS THAT YOU REPRESENT.

The Survey
The survey has three main objectives as follows:-

1. To assess the awareness of existing work-life balance opportunities.

2. To elicit perceptions with regard to the prevailing culture in NUIM in relation to
work-life balance.
3. To ascertain what ‘work-life balance’ means to staff and their needs and interests
in this regard.

The closing date for receipt of completed surveys is September, 15th 2004. Return
address appears at the end of each survey.

Going forward
• A project report will be sent to the Equality Authority/National Framework
Committee to enable them to continue building up a picture of what is happening
on the ground in Ireland in relation to work-life balance.

• A project report will be sent to the Personnel Department in NUIM.

• I propose, with your agreement, to report on the project findings to the Partnership
Committee and request that you might then consider taking the recommendations
forward.

Contact Details
For any questions or problems in relation to the survey, my contact details are as follows:-

Dr. Ann Coughlan

Quality Promotion Office
Humanity House
National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM)
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
(01) 7086287
Ann.Coughlan@may.ie

Thank you for your time!

82
 Appendix 5- Consultation process survey

Quality Promotion Office

National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Work-Life Balance

A. ABOUT WORK-LIFE BALANCE

1. Are you aware of the following work- life balance policies/practices in NUIM?
Policy/Schemes Yes No
Job Sharing
Parental Leave
Carer’s Leave
Term Time Working
Travel Pass Scheme
House Loan Scheme
Flexi-Time
Force Majeure Leave
Career Break

2. To what extent do you agree with the following statement?

It seems to me that NUIM facilitates flexible working arrangements

Agree strongly Agree Disagree Disagree strongly Don’t Know

3. To what degree would you be interested in availing of the following work-life

balance provisions (if made available)?
Policy/Scheme Very Interested Not at all Not
interested Interested relevant
Term-time working
Family Friendly Day(s)
Parental leave
Carer’s leave
Career break
Job sharing
Study leave/study assistance
Flexi-time
Shorter working week (e.g. 4-day week)
Annualised hours contract (rather than weekly/monthly
hours)
More social events
Activity weekends away
Telecommuting/home working
Leave of absence/unpaid leave for personal reasons
Greater opportunities for personal development
Provisions of stress/tension relieving measures (e.g. Tai
Chi, Yoga, Massage etc.)
Summer camps for children
83
 Appendix 5- Consultation process survey
4. Any other suggestions/comments?

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

B. ABOUT YOU

5. Gender Male Female

6. Age 18-30 31-40 41-50 >50

7. How many dependent29 children do you have? (Please fill in number of children in
each applicable category in box provided)

Pre-school age Full time primary education Secondary education

No dependent children

8. Do you have anyone sick/elderly/disabled whom you look after/give special help
to?

Yes No

C. ABOUT WORK

9. Which of the following contractual arrangements applies to your work?

Permanent contract Temporary contract Occasional staff

10. Are you working full-time or part-time?

Full-time Part-time

11. Please indicate your current work category and grading

_______________________________________________________________________
(e.g. executive assistant, admin officer 1, senior lecturer, advisor 2, library assistant, senior technician, etc.)

Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire. Please return to: -

Dr. Ann Coughlan, Quality Promotion Office, Humanity House, NUIM

by 15th September, 2004

Please note that views expressed in this questionnaire will not be used other than in this exploratory project.

29
‘dependent’, in the context of work-life balance, in terms of demands on time for ‘care’ (university-going children are
therefore excluded)
84
 Appendix 6 - Case Studies - guiding questions for informal interviews

Guide questions for exploration with organisations/institutions: -

-What kinds of resources/planning does your organisation put into work-life balance
issues?

-What work life balance initiatives have you put in place?

-Did you undertake any consultation process with staff?

-How do you disseminate information?

-What do you consider to be the most important issues in relation to work-life

balance?

-What kinds of tensions/challenges have arises and what is the best way to tackle
these?

-Do you have any plans for further development in this area?

-Do you have any advice/learning for other organisations?

85