The Southern Cross Healthy Futures report is a biennial snapshot of New Zealand’s health and wellbeing behaviours. In this article series, we’re exploring key insights from the 2024 edition, diving into what New Zealanders care about most.

Achieving an adequate work-life balance can be difficult, and almost elusive for many working adults. Almost 90 percent of New Zealanders agree that work-life balance is important, yet only half view their own work-life balance positively. For many of us, high workloads and financial pressures are some of the biggest barriers to achieving our ideal work-life balance.1

The good news is that many of us can achieve improved work-life balance. Increasingly, workplaces understand that work-life balance is essential for morale, productivity and wellbeing, and there are many policies that could help employees achieve sustainable employment.

The perils of overwork

But what exactly is work-life balance? For one, it’s having sustainable working hours. Working long hours can encroach on people’s wellbeing by forcing them to sacrifice other needs like sleep, fitness and social and whānau commitments.

Almost a quarter of Kiwis say work commitments prevent them from exercising, and there’s been an increase in people who say they lose sleep from long work hours.1 Additionally, most New Zealanders want more quality time with whānau, especially Māori and those with young children. Work remains the biggest barrier to achieving quality time with family.1

Overworking has also been linked to a whole host of negative outcomes. People who work long hours are 12 percent more likely to become heavy drinkers, and they’re also more likely to sleep poorly and display depressive symptoms.2 Working long hours have also been linked to a higher risk of noncommunicable conditions like heart disease and declining cognition.2,3

Although not immediately intuitive, workplaces which discourage long hours ultimately benefit as absenteeism and turnover increases for people who overwork.3 There are also performance implications to overworking. For one, a lack of sleep disrupts important neurobiological processes that people need to perform at their peak.4

Besides the impairment of sleep deprivation, research has found overworked people may develop difficulties for skills like communication, self-management and big picture thinking. People who overwork are also more likely to make mistakes.3 This is particularly worrying given technical and skilled workers, and tradespeople, are more likely to lose sleep from working long hours.1 In some trades, mistakes can be both costly and life-threatening.

The causes of overwork

Given all these negative effects, why are some people compelled to overwork? Research shows people overwork for complex reasons.1 For some, workplace cultural factors may be at play. Some professions are more likely to believe overwork is necessary. According to one American survey, people in professional service fields like IT workers, lawyers and accountants believe the key to success is an “always on” approach.5 This may lead some workers to have poor work-life boundaries, ultimately leading to stress and burnout.

Other major barriers are financial pressures and an increase in workload.1 This may reflect factors such as the strained capacity of some New Zealand industries, the effects of an ongoing pandemic, and our high cost of living.

Defining the balance

Research has shown that the exact meaning of an adequate work-life balance may vary by individual context such as life stage, values, and background.6

But people who rate their own work-life balance as “good” do share things in common. Many say they have flexible work hours, are able to “switch off”, have hybrid work arrangements, and are more likely to prioritise their own wellbeing.1

On the flip-side, people who have “bad” work-life balance cite increased workloads, inflexible hours, financial pressures and a lack of energy.1

This might reflect inequities in types of work. Some jobs require inflexible or long hours by nature.7 However, clever and consistent management of rosters can help to mitigate some of these barriers.

The meaning of work-life balance varies by industry.8 Medical and tourism workers were more likely to value time-in-lieu, with almost half of all workers saying they associated it with good work-life balance. Other industries like human resources and recruitment, media, IT, finance, legal and government workers valued working from home. However, some workers valued time in lieu, regular or flexible working hours, and working remotely equally. These industries included construction, science and technology, education and training, and agriculture and farming.8

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for a good work-life balance due to individual needs.8,9 Women may face more work-life challenges, for instance, as they continue to bear a majority of domestic labour while becoming an increasing part of the workforce.9 Luckily, effective work-life balance interventions can be applied to any working arrangement or context, as they simply look for the best ways to reduce work-life conflict for employees.10

Research suggests that it’s not the specific policy that matters, it’s having a range of policies in place to protect workers’ work-life balance. These can be formal or informal policies. Team leaders may wish to lead by example and set strict boundaries between work and non-work hours by not sending or checking emails, for instance.11 Formal policies could include mandated break-times, childcare allowances, or enforceable guidelines around shift management.

Increasingly, hybrid working is becoming an important work-life policy for many people and industries. The pandemic saw a huge increase in people working remotely in New Zealand, and white-collar workers are increasingly expecting flexibility from their workplace. Researchers found hybrid-working to be an important factor in considering a new role, and 45 percent of workers cite it as their top factor when considering new roles.12

The benefits of balance

Although there is no one-size-fits-all effective work-life balance policy, most agree that working less than 45 hours per week is best for productivity, though short bursts of longer working hours when absolutely necessary can be conducive in the short term. However, in the long term, working for more than eight hours a day has been shown to reduce relative output.13

Perhaps that’s why many employees continue to consider days-in-lieu to be a large part of a fair work-life balance.8 It ensures that although employees can respond to “crunch-time”, they don’t burn out and can protect their wellbeing. Around 25 percent of New Zealanders say taking time off from work helps them build emotional wellbeing.1

By encouraging sustainable work-life balance, businesses are looking after their most important asset – their people. Workplaces that instituted work-life policies saw increased job satisfaction, increased commitment to their company, reduced staff turnover, and a reduction in absenteeism and lateness.10

In turn, employees reported improved job satisfaction, improved mental and physical health, reduced stress, a sense of job security and autonomy in the workplace.10

Other ways workplaces can support a healthy work-life balance for their employees include strong managerial support, confidence to pursue work-life balance without career consequence, and a positive workplace culture.10

For more on how Kiwis envision their ideal work-life balance, and how it fits into their overall conceptions of health, access the Southern Cross Healthy Futures Report 2024, available here.

References

1. Kantar and Southern Cross, “Southern Cross Healthy Futures Report 2024”, (Auckland: Southern Cross, 2024).
2. Sarah Green Carmichael, “Working long hours makes us drink more”, Harvard Business Review, 10 April 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/04/working-long-hours-makes-us-drink-more
3. Sarah Green Carmichael, “The research is clear: long hours backfire for people and for companies”, Harvard Business Review 19 August 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies
4. Broneyn Fryer, “Sleep Deficit: The performance killer”, Harvard Business Review October 2006, https://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer
5. Leslie A. Perlow and Jessica L. Porter. “Making time off predictable – and required”, Harvard Business Review October 2009, https://hbr.org/2009/10/making-time-off-predictable-and-required
6. Thomas Kalliath and Paula Brough, “Work-life balance: A review of the meaning of the balance construct”, Journal of Management & Organisation (2008): 14: 323-327.
7. Alice Succoni, Oscar Vargas Llave and Michele Consolini, “Flexible work increases post-pandemic, but not for everyone”, Eurofound in ‘Working conditions and sustainable work’, 11 April 2024, https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/resources/article/2024/flexible-work-increases-post-pandemic-not-everyone#footnote1_HiHHZdMHMwJ3o17P6wLIHQmo4AXBhOaKA7aLcsanGk_s53cImJMrTkI
8. EQ Consultants, “91% of NZ workers say work-life balance is important to them, but what do people really want?” EQ Consultants, (10 October 2023), https://www.eqconsultants.co.nz/resources/knowledge-base/work-life-balance-every-new-zealand-industry-compared/
9. Sally Khallash and Martin Kruse, “The future of work and work-life balance 2025”, Futures 44, (26 May 2012), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016328712001085
10. Ioan Lazăr, Codruța Osoian, Patricia Rațiu, “The role of work-life balance practices in order to improve organisational performance”, European Research Studies vol. 8(1), (2010): 201 – 213.
11. Adam Wyatt, “What exactly does work-life balance mean?”, Peninsula, previously Employsure, (12 December 2022, Updated 11 June 2024),https://employsure.co.nz/blog/what-exactly-does-work-life-balance-mean
12. Ireland Hendry-Tennent, “Research finds 90 percent of white-collar workers in NZ would look for new job if they had to stop working from home”, Newshub, 28 May 2024,https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/lifestyle/2024/05/research-finds-90-percent-of-white-collar-workers-in-nz-would-look-for-new-job-if-they-had-to-stop-working-from-home.html
13. Sara Robinson, “Bring back the 40-hour work week”, Salon, (14 March 2012), https://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/