Pressures on work-life balance have grown in modern British society. Concern mounted in the 1990s as more strains arose from job insecurity, work intensification, marital breakdown, a large increase in lone parenting, and demands for parents to be more involved in their children's education (Burchell et al., 2002;Dex, 1999). Employee absence was costed at £4 billion per year by the Department of Trade and Industry, and employee stress and turnover were also recognized as large business and social costs (DTI, 2000). In 1997 the newly elected Labour government started to formulate family policies to cope with these problems, one being encouragement to employers to adopt more flexible working arrangements. The Work-Life Balance Challenge Fund (DfEE, 2000) offered employers money for consultancy costs to cover plans to introduce flexible arrangements. Britain also adopted the EU Working Hours Directive from 1998, limiting weekly hours to 48, although a large proportion of employees were allowed to opt out. However, it is not clear what measures of success for these interventions should be applied. Work-life balance should provide one criterion, indicating in turn a set of appropriate measures.In the next section we summarize the work-life balance literature at the turn of the 21st century. The report of field research that follows it describes a checklist measure for employees' work-life balance, analyses data collected using this instrument from a selection of employees in eight organizations, and draws clear conclusions from the analysis. Work-life balance literatureEmployers' work-life policies have been researched using many methods; for example, (a) large-scale nationally representative sample surveys to document 627 Work, employment and society

Third sector organizations (TSOs) have emerged as key players in the delivery of public services to assist jobless people to improve their employability and move from welfare to work. Drawing on in‐depth research with employability providers in Scotland, this article explores how TSOs have responded to the challenges of a rapidly changing public services environment. Specifically, we use the concept of the ‘New Public Governance’ to explore TSOs' relationships with UK, devolved and local government stakeholders. TSOs demonstrated a pragmatic approach to shaping their services to reflect the priorities of public funders, and identified some opportunities arising from the new emphasis on ‘localism’. However, the evidence suggests that opportunities for collaboration at times remained constrained by certain forms of ‘contractualism’ and top‐down performance management. Based on the evidence, lessons for future policy and practice are considered.

Policies which help employees balance their work and non-work priorities have become increasingly popular among UK employers in recent years. Along with a legislative imperative for family leave-related policies, employers are being encouraged to introduce work-life policies and make them more inclusive in order to enhance their business performance. This paper looks at how four financial services organisations have approached the work-life balance agenda and examines the fit between the organisational intentions for work-life policy and actual outcomes for both organisations and employees. Culture played a large part in determining the experience of policies but so did resources. What managers were being asked to achieve in the business was often incompatible with formal work-life policies. Despite the rhetoric, work-life balance was still viewed as a tool for, and was used by female parents, limiting its potential to achieve the promoted business benefits.

Using evidence drawn from case studies in four companies in the Scottish financial sector, this paper examines how both statutory and company family leave policies are operated by line managers. This paper considers the extent of line managers’ knowledge of statutory and company family leave policies and finds that their knowledge, particularly of statutory measures, is often wanting. In exploring the reasons for this situation, training on statutory and company family leave policies was found to be extremely limited and although support from human resource professionals was provided, line managers only referred to them in exceptional circumstances. This situation has clear implications both for consistency of operation of these policies and for the role of human resource professionals in ensuring that statutory and company provisions are effectively put into practice.

This article employs linear regression techniques to model the variables associated with work-life balance outcomes of employees. Using data from employee surveys carried out in four financial sector companies in Scotland, it was found that while the level of perceived availability did not have an impact on work-life balance, organisational culture was significantly associated. This indicates that without a supportive work-life organisational culture, the provision of arrangements in themselves will not necessarily lead to better work-life balance outcomes. The analysis also shows that longer working hours, job status, take-up and experiences of limited access to arrangements were significantly associated with work-life outcomes. The findings are discussed in the context of recent government legislation and initiatives and further research examining the impact of work-life initiatives on employees is recommended.