Gender and Work Life

Balance
Kate Sang k.sang@hw.ac.uk

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Learning outcomes
• To understand how changes to workforce
demographics affect organisations
• To understand the measures that
organisations can take to support the WLB
of members
• To understand some of the effects of these
measures

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Work-life balance
• Well-being at work (part of H&S?)
• Intensification of work (longer hours, more
intense work)
• No set definition – often (paid) work-family
(childcare) interaction
• Part of recruitment and retention efforts

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Work life balance practices
• What are some of the steps that
organisations can take to support the work
life balance of employees?

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Work-life balance practices
• Flexible working
• Number of hours
• Timing of hours
• Location of hours

Part time, flexitime, compressed week, annual hours, term-time

working, job share, self-rostering, shift swapping, unpaid leave,
unpaid sabbaticals, working from home, informal flexibility

Torrington et al Enterprise and its Business

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Benefits of WLB
• Performance
• Retention
• Discretionary effort
• Outside skills feeding back into workplace

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Barriers to WLB
• Take-up gap (changing employer)
• British labour market rigid
• Costs
• Reactionary rather than strategic
• Professional part time – really??

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Gender and work-life balance
• Requests for childcare viewed more
favourably
• WLB – ‘ghettoised’ – for women with
children who don’t really want a career
• ‘Special privileges’
• Lacking commitment

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Women & WLB – is it the same for all?
• Crompton and Lyonette (2011)
• Women professionals working part time
• Career limiting
• Marriage and family career/pay benefits for men
• Crowding into family friendly, but lower prestige
specialisms
• Forson (2013)
• Self-employed black women have to negotiate
societal structures for WLB
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 CIPD survey 2013
• 96% employers offer some flexible working
(more prevalent in larger organisations, but just
for some employees)
• 75% employees take up flexible working (mostly
part time). Greater uptake from women
• Those in smaller companies report fewer
barriers
Flexible working – provision and uptake
https://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/5790%20Flexible%20Working%20SR
%20(WEB2).pdf
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British Gas case study (CIPD)
• Service to customers, attracting and retaining
talent, want a ‘diverse workforce that reflects our
community and customer base’
‘We believe that happy, committed employees
lead to a successful, flourishing organisation.
Offering benefits such as flexible working builds
mutual trust between employer and employee. In
return, our people reward us with great service
and commitment to the business and our
customers.’
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Conclusions
• Changing demographics – organisations must
respond
• WLB – range of measures affecting timing and
location of working hours
• Demand greater than uptake
• A woman’s issue?
• Recruitment and retention, meeting customer
needs
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Reading
• Cassell, C., Nadin, S., Gray, M., & Clegg, C. (2002). Exploring
human resource management practices in small and medium
sized enterprises. Personnel Review, 31(6), 671-692.
• Guo, C., Brown, W. A., Ashcraft, R. F., Yoshioka, C. F., & Dong,
H. K. D. (2011). Strategic human resources management in
non-profit organizations. Review of Public Personnel
Administration, 31(3), 248-269.
• Torrington, D. (2008). HALL. L.; TAYLOR, S. Human resource
management, 5.
• http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/disability-statistics-and-research/
disability-facts-and-figures.php#imp

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More reading
• Forson, C. (2013). Contextualising migrant black
business women's work-life balance
experiences. International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behaviour & Research, 19(5), 460-477.
• Crompton, R., & Lyonette, C. (2011). Women's career
success and work–life adaptations in the accountancy
and medical professions in Britain. Gender, Work &
Organization, 18(2), 231-254
• CIPD, 2013. Flexible working, provision and uptake

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