Edited by Thorpe Benefits from original article in The Ivey Entrepreneur, March/April, 2002

Studies show that different policies, practices and strategies are needed to reduce all three aspects of work-life interference. While there is no "magic bullet" solution, the evidence suggests that there are a number of ways to reduce this conflict. Here are some of our recommendations:

Ten Recommendations for Employers

1) Devote more resources to improving "people management" practices within the workplace. Employees who work for a supportive manager report a greater ability to balance work and family than those who have a non-supportive manager.

2) Provide employees with increased control and flexibility regarding when and where they work. Employees who enjoy such control tend to report lower levels of role overload, work-to-family and family-to-work interference.

3) Create more supportive work environments by:
 o  Working with employees to identify and implement the types of support they say they need, and better inform them about policies that may currently be available.
 o  Encouraging employees to use the supports that are readily available and ensure that employees who could make use of such assistance do not feel that their career prospects would be jeopardized by doing so.

4) Give employees the explicit right to refuse overtime.  Providing employees with the ability to refuse overtime hours appears to be quite effective in reducing high role overload. This may reflect the increased ability of such employees to more easily schedule time with family or run errands.

5) Provide a limited number of annual paid leave days for personal reasons such as childcare and eldercare.

6) Make it easier for employees to transfer from full-time to part-time work and viceversa.  Introduce pro-rated benefits for part-time workers, guarantee a return to full-time status for those who elect to work part-time, and protect employee seniority when shifting from full- to part-time work, and vice-versa.

7) Provide appropriate support for employees who work rotating shifts. Such support should be determined by consulting with those who perform shift-work. Policies that have been found to be effective include limiting split shifts, providing advanced notice of shift changes, and permitting employees to trade shifts amongst themselves.

8) Introduce initiatives to increase an employee's sense of control, perhaps through increased use of self-directed work teams, promoting meaningful employee participation in decision making and increasing and improving information sharing between management and employees.

9) Examine employee workload concerns.

10) Consider offering employee and family assistance programs.

Recommendations for Employees and their Families

1) Take full advantage of what support policies exist within your organization.

2) Raise work-life balance issues in workplace discussions and within the community.

3) Educate yourself in how to deal effectively with stress.