Work Life Balance

Many researches have been conducted continuously during the last decades to investigate the work-life balance changes within various countries. The most significant issue raised from the imbalance is long working hours. The more people work, the less time they have to spend on other activities, such as personal care or leisure. The amount and quality of leisure time is important for people’s overall well-being, and can bring additional physical and mental health benefits.There is no doubt that long-hour working hours could result in high stress at work and burnout, and work-family conflict which would correlated with negative work performance. Therefore, to reconcile the work and family conflicts, UK has taken some important policies to address this issue. Although there do have some improvements such as the availability of different kinds of leave in the statutory provisions, the impact in the employees level is not significant due to certain factors and there is still gap between the private and public sectors regarding to the implementation. Despite the existing progress, not only the state, but also the employer and employees have important roles to play in achieving better outcomes.
It is noticeable that the effort of the three parties is actually intertwined with each other. Under the availability of the government regulations, its legislative impact on the workplace will be influenced by management practices and attitude. Employees could also implement work-related strategies to seek work-life balance. Moreover, the influence of the high-performance practices and conditions such as the individual flexibility and discretion over hours is diverse on male and female, and is impact is also changed with time and individual’s attitude. This essay discusses the factors by focusing on the general impact and trend.
State
• Working time regulations
• Maternity leave/paternity leave
• Parental leave
• Regulations concerning part-time employment
Among the