Work-life Balance in the Post-Pandemic World

Making sure employees have a good work-life balance can be a difficult task for employers.  This is especially true following the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen more staff working from home and longer hours than ever before. Research suggests that firms will move towards more flexible working as a consequence of the global Covid-19 crisis.  Letting staff recharge their batteries without the stigma of skiving aims to boost 'wellbeing' and cut the estimated 18 million working days lost to stress in Britain each year.  But lockdown has also made things worse for staff.  Research found that, although some staff enjoyed the flexibility and were glad of getting rid of the daily commute, others have struggled, with 46 per cent saying home working was having a negative impact on their well-being. Without the proper work-life balance staff can become dissatisfied, unmotivated in their role and other negative impacts on life can occur - such as lack of exercise, increased stress levels, poor social lives, psychological and physical health problems. Since 2012 managers also reported working extra hours due to the ‘digitisation’ of the workplace.  One survey found managers were working the equivalent of 29 extra days per year – more than the typical annual leave entitlement.  Nine out of ten said they regularly worked longer than their contracted hours, while a third reported feeling ‘overloaded.’  This is especially true in the IT sector, where being constantly ‘connected’ to e-mails or able to work remotely has meant two thirds of employees find it increasingly difficult to ‘switch off’ out of office hours. The pandemic has accelerated this trend, with many companies forced to bring the office to their workers’ kitchen tables quickly when the virus took hold in March 2020. According to a survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), published in April 2021, two-thirds (63%) of employers said they planned to expand the use of hybrid working – allowing staff to work several days a week from home – once the pandemic subsides.  This means organisations must take a strategic approach to homeworking to harness its benefits and improve working lives post-pandemic. The same research found more than two thirds (71%) of employers thought the increase in homeworking had either boosted or made no difference to productivity. Perceptions of productivity differed between organisations that had offered line manager training in managing remote workers and those that hadn’t.  Of those employers who offered such training, 43% said productivity had increased during homeworking, compared to only 29% that hadn’t offered training. IT managers and those working within the IT industry have a better ability than others to work remotely.  Employees within the IT sector have the power to access a multitude of areas without having to physically be in a specific location and this also opens the doors to working extra hours to rectify problems or to meet deadlines. That is why, in the post-pandemic world, it is vital IT companies take steps to help their staff find a better work-life balance to protect their future well-being and productivity.