Reconciling work and family life is a priority for most employees in a company, but especially for those who have children. Nowadays, companies are becoming more and more flexible when it comes to creating working hours and conditions that allow for work-life balance. However, in Spain we are still far from other European countries in terms of work-life balance policies and 80% of employees still say that they have problems in reconciling work and family.
Reducing absenteeism, boosting productivity or retaining talent talent are some of the goals that employers set themselves with policies aimed at improving work-life balance. In addition to the implementation of these policies by companies, there is another element that makes it possible to improve work-family reconciliation: the implementation of certain social actions or benefits. This is the case, for example, of making it easier for employees' children to have access to childcare that suits their needs and preferences.
In this respect, solutions such as Childcare Ticket allows employees to have a bonus that they can use to pay for their children's childcare, which helps to improve the work-life balance while reducing their childcare costs.
Companies have the responsibility to make it easier for its employees to combine work and family. Furthermore, to be a socially responsible company entails important benefits:
For a company to be able to support the reconciliation of your employees deberá:
Modifying and adapting working hours is the first action we must take to facilitate a work-life balance. introduction of the compressed working week or teleworking They are two effective tools that can solve this problem as they allow time to be distributed more effectively.
Another possibility is bringing the start time forward and reducing meal times, to implement a policy of flexible timetables taking into account school drop-off and pick-up times in order to provide parents with proper family care.
This requires a change in corporate culture, such as not scheduling meetings outside working hours and respecting the family life of all employees.
The telework it is on the agenda and especially after the pandemic caused by COVID19, being a modality increasingly used in our country. Grant freedom, not just from schedules but from location, It is essential for work-life balance. Therefore, we must give more importance to the results obtained by our employees than to rigid working hours.
A family-friendly company must offer a different kind of complementary solutions to those mentioned above when it comes to facilitating family care for their employees.
One option, for example, is to offer childcare recruitment facilities as well as providing staff with support to cover the associated costs. This support could form part of a Flexible employee remuneration plan, as in the case of Edenred Nursery Ticket, which also allows them to benefit from significant tax advantages.
There are some aspects of work-life balance policies that, while intended to improve employees' working conditions, end up having the opposite effect. A detailed analysis of the professional barriers that prevent the successful reconciliation of work and family life for employees allows for more effective problem-solving.
Among the barriers most frequently experienced by employees when it comes to reconciling are the following:
Problems begin when it's unclear how many hours employees are expected to work, or what performance is anticipated within working hours.
Traditionally, the culture of many organisations identifies long working hours as a sign of commitment, productivity and motivation for progress. However, it has been more than proven that, in practice, lonstancy does not equate to higher performance.. For this reason productivity must be considered priority number one, and far ahead of physical presence in the workplace or availability.
It is up to managers and leaders motivating or discouraging employee efforts to achieve a balance between family and work life. When employees perceive this support, they are more likely to accept changes. Whereas if they perceive negative signals, they will assume that accepting the new flexible conditions could end up being detrimental to them and the organisation as a whole.
It is essential that communication between superiors and subordinates should be fluid and clear, as it facilitates the implementation of work-life balance policies and also their flexibility. This allows these policies to be more effective by being better able to adapt to the real needs of employees.
Another significant barrier to reconciliation is the fear of professional consequences. Because even if the company has reconciliation policies, these will only be implemented if the employee feels free to resort to them without negative repercussions for their career prospects.
According to recent studies, one in five workers in Europe is dissatisfied with the work-life balance options available to them. However, our country is among the EU nations that guarantee a greater work-life balance, with 8.8 points out of 10, placing us ahead of other European countries such as France (7.7), Germany (8.1), Portugal (7.7) or Norway (8.2).
The number of hours a person works is one of the points to consider when achieving an effective work-life balance. And, although the proportion of employees working 50 hours or more per week is not very high in OECD countries, standing at 13%, in our country these long working hours are even less representative, as they only affect 6%of the active population.
It is clear that the more hours dedicated to professional exercise, the less time is available for rest and leisure. As the OECD points out, “the quantity and quality of free time are important for people's general well-being and can generate additional benefits for physical and mental health.” Fortunately, in Spain, there are an average of 15.9 hours a day left for social life, sleep and personal care, 0.9 more than the European Union average.
Maintaining the balance between your professional and personal life is not only important for personal health and relationships, but it can also improve work efficiency and boosting work performance.
By improving the Conciliation of work and family life is achieved:
Discover all the possibilities that Edenred offers companies to enable them to to implement an efficient work-life balance policy for its employees. Request information without obligation.
