According to a recent report from a leading expert in leadership development, 39% of businesses feel work-life balance has the biggest influence on staff morale, with senior managers and board members regarded as having the worst work life balance.
When compared against a similar report from 2009, work-life balance is now regarded as the most influential factor for staff morale, a leap up from its previous ranking of sixth.
The research, conducted by Morgan Redwood, is based on responses from the heads of human resource departments or board director level from over 250 businesses. These have been drawn from across the UK and from a mix of sectors and a range of company sizes, with two thirds employing over 250 people, and none less than 50.
Janice Haddon, MD of Morgan Redwood, said: “The findings from this latest report help to demonstrate the importance of a good work-life balance – in the eyes of business leaders at least. When taken against our 2009 findings, it seems that it’s now regarded as much more important than it was previously. What has caused this shift in opinion?”
As part of the study, senior managers were asked to rate their employees’ level of morale out of ten (with ten being excellent), which found the average rating was just 5.2. When asked what factors were most likely to adversely affect morale, a poor work-life balance was seen as number one, according to 33.2% of those questioned.
When asked to rank ‘who has the best work-life balance’ senior managers came out as fourth, with only the board deemed to have a worse balance. The ‘wider workforce’ were deemed to have the best balance, followed by ‘junior managers’ and ‘middle managers’.
