Balance becomes more elusive
by Kelly Stone and Michèle Nardelli
Many Australian workers are still finding it a struggle to
balance work with the rest of their lives, the 2009 Australian Work
and Life Index (AWALI) report has found.
More than one-quarter of full-time employees report frequent work interference with activities outside work, according to the third annual AWALI report conducted by UniSA’s Centre for Work + Life.
AWALI 2009 found Australian women are questioning the strain imposed by full-time work, whether they have children or not. It found a third of all full-time working women would like to go part-time – particularly mothers (38 per cent) but also women without children (more than a quarter).
Other key findings include workers being too busy to take on further education, and that the Federal Government’s new Fair Work Act provides a good starting place to increase flexibility for employees but it could go further.
UniSA Centre for Work + Life Director, Professor Barbara Pocock, said improving work-life balance for working women, making it easier for Australian workers to learn new skills and more flexible working arrangements, will be key factors in driving a strong recovery from the recession.
Prof Pocock, who co-authored the report with Natalie Skinner and Reina Ichii, said the results of the survey should concern all employers who are interested in planning for better economic times.
"We tend to adopt a ‘batten down the hatches’ mentality in tough economic times when we should be looking at survey results like these and considering how we can build a sustainable workforce for the future," she said.
Prof Pocock said a noticeable result from the survey was deteriorating work-life balance for full-time working women.
"I think the striking result in our latest survey result is the very poor outcome for Australia’s full-time working women, with two-thirds of them feeling constantly rushed or pressed for time," Prof Pocock said.
"We are seeing a real shift in how women feel about work and the survey gives us some clues about why that is – women are struggling to balance all their commitments beyond work with their jobs and this affects not only those working full-time, but also part timers."
"In a broad sense the workforce has become highly feminised as we’ve moved from a commodities to a service-based economy, so if women become disaffected with full-time work, we are going to struggle to maintain national productivity.
"We need to be thinking about the key factors that will provide better work-life outcomes for all of our workers – that may include more flexible work places, cutting down commuting time to work, developing increased flexibility around working from home or making better use of technology to build in job flexibility."
She said flexibility was a key issue and changes introduced in the Fair Work Act were a step in the right direction.
"AWALI 2009 shows that in the past year about one in five employees made requests with only a third of those requests knocked back," she said.
"But we also know that about 80 per cent of employees are not making requests for a range of reasons including that they feel their jobs don’t suit flexible arrangements or that they have too much work on their plates.
"This new legislation opens the door to more constructive conversations around workplace flexibility that will help workers balance their life commitments as well."
Prof Pocock said the survey provides baseline data against which progress can be measured.
"We have an opportunity to create Australian work cultures that deliver economic prosperity and a workforce with high levels of well being," she said.
"We need to be careful that we don’t go further down a path that puts pressure on individuals and their families, especially women and those working long hours, creating a constant strain between work and life."
The AWALI 2009 report can be viewed at the Centre for Work + Life website