Companies Need to Help Employees Improve Work-Life Balance

According to Survey From Avaya

By Jerry Olsen
Updated: June 21, 2012

Some recent findings from Avaya research show the extent to which employees’ over commitment to work can negatively impact their personal lives. Avaya Research is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. Avaya’s research report showed some of the negative impacts employees suffer from overworking.

According to a survey of 700 senior managers from small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the United Kingdom and Germany, the survey was conducted in the Summer 2011

Overall, 81 percent of people surveyed said they experienced negative consequences as a direct result from spending too much time at work--rather than other areas of their life.

On the other hand, 83 percent of those same people said flexible working helps solve some of their personal problems and relieve stress at the same time.

The survey added that businesses can help employees improving their work-life balance by offering flexibility-boosting communications tools.

However, the survey still reported that many workers suffered negative consequences that went beyond the daily stresses of office life. The following are a few examples of problems they described.

• One third (33%) said they had bad health.
• More than a quarter (27%) of them admitted to marriage or relationship problems.
• Almost a fifth (18%) of working parents admitted to missing out on their kids’ school activities due to an inflexible work schedule.
• One tenth (10%) said their dedication to work resulted in divorce or separation.

Although businesses have made some progress in helping employees achieve a better work-life balance through flexible working policies, people are still saying this practice isn’t as prevalent as it should be.

Over three quarters (76%) of SMBs offer employees some sort of flexible working, yet people spend an average 74% of their working week chained to their desks.