ARE YOU HAPPIEST when working from home? For many, office life seems like a distant memory. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the way we’ve all worked has changed but how has this affected our overall life satisfaction?
In the early days, remote work was certainly a necessity. People needed to keep each other safe by staying apart. But two years on, how are people feeling about it now? Are employers still striking the balance? Or is it time to jump back on the daily commute?
With new EU directives on work-life balance being enacted, we know the importance that’s being placed on work flexibility. The foundations are being laid for workforces across Europe to look entirely different to recent years, and we wanted to find out how people are feeling about their own work-life balance at this moment in time.
We’ve teamed up with Allianz Insurance to conduct the Securing Your Future* survey which looks at all aspects of Irish life.
In our first theme, we looked at childhood dream jobs, and now… it’s time to examine work-life balance.
When examining work-life balance, we first established how many of those surveyed are working from home currently, we then drilled down into their overall satisfaction to explore how the population are feeling.
Overall Satisfaction
Of those surveyed, excluding those who don’t work from home, we asked how much has working from home improved or disimproved your overall life satisfaction? 42% of those surveyed revealed it improved a lot, 28% said their satisfaction had somewhat improved and 21% concluded that it had made no difference.
Work-life balance
Achieving the perfect work-life balance is no mean feat. It’s a key part of every working person’s life and not only includes juggling work with your own time but also with external relationships.
At times, it can feel like an elusive concept.
Of those surveyed, we were happy to find that of those working, 55% found that their work-life balance was exactly where they wanted it to be with 32% indicating far too much work time and far too little leisure time.
Earlier this year, the Government published the Work-Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. Under the legislation, parents and carers will have the right to request flexible working hours.
This legislation is necessary to implement the EU Work-life Balance Directive which aims to improve families’ access to family leave and flexible work arrangements and shows the serious commitment the EU has to improving the balance when it comes to our personal and professional lives.
When we look at our survey statistics, we can see that there is a good level of work-life satisfaction amongst those surveyed which implies that employers are certainly on the right track and that work-life balance is an achievable goal.
Three question poll conducted for Allianz & TheJournal.ie by Ireland Thinks. Date of Survey: 2nd 3rd of September, 2022. Sample size: 1018. Margin of Error: +/- 3 percent.
Allianz Insurance offers a hybrid working model for its employees. You can find out more about working at Allianz and current opportunities here.
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