Recommendation 6: Work-Life Balance

Recommendation 6

Organisations should demonstrate a commitment to promoting work-life balance.

This should include specified working hours / patterns wherever possible and clear and reasonable expectations of employees to respond to work demands outside of agreed work hours.

Managers at all levels need to lead by example and demonstrate their commitment to wellbeing through their words, actions and behaviour. For example, working reasonable hours, taking regular breaks, limiting expectations of out-of-hours communication, and taking holiday entitlements.

Employees should be given the opportunity to negotiate temporary and permanent flexible working arrangements, unless there is a good business reason for not doing so. This might include term-time contracts, compressed hours, delayed start times, working from home or taking an hourly lunch break in three twenty-minute blocks.

Flexible leave arrangements to respond to personal/family commitments/circumstances might also be considered.

For example, some organisations have introduced:

  • Flexible annual leave or sick days to care for sick children or respond to childcare crises

  • The option of an annual one-month block of unpaid leave to help with childcare during holidays

  • Additional paid leave to deal with the repercussions of bereavement or domestic violence

Single Employer
2 2Seas

PATH – PerinAtal menTal Health – is part of the Interreg VA 2Seas programme and receives funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

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