Introduction

How could working lives be reshaped to afford all employees greater choice in achieving work–life balance? The Scottish Council Foundation's ‘Lifelines’ study has considered this question, drawing on comparative findings from policy and practice in the UK, Canada and Australia and testing practical options for reform with public and private sector employees in Scotland (Boyes and McCormick, forthcoming b).

Two related dimensions for improvement emerge. One involves the context and culture in which work is performed, covering pay and conditions (for example, holiday and sick leave entitlements), employee representation and participation, and the balance between contribution and reward. Making progress towards more employees having a more fulfilling experience of work will involve a decisive shift from dominant measures of economic progress, such as aggregate employment rates, and a traditional agenda for health and safety at work, to a deeper understanding of the true determinants of job satisfaction, motivation and morale. The second set of issues is a sub-set of the first, with a focus on a ‘whole career’ approach to flexibility at work, including reform of time across working life. This chapter focuses on the second of these.

We have explored ways in which ‘time assets’ could be accrued, drawing on concepts of saving, borrowing and buying periods of leave. Employees can achieve greater integration between work and other aspects of their lives by accumulating assets in the shape of enhanced periods of paid leave (using deferral of both existing leave entitlements and salary) and by being enabled to take a phased approach to retirement. Specifically, we explore how greater flexibility in time use across whole working lives could help employees achieve better balance between time in and outside work, and improve potential to reach mid to later stages of career with lower risks of unmanageable stress and burnout, and higher levels of ‘workability’. Our proposition is that by enabling employees to build up personalised time assets, warm rhetoric about work–life balance can become more of a reality.

Satisfaction with working life

Employment levels are relatively high and stable in the UK by OECD standards, despite significant geographical variations. The labour market is characterised by both continuity and rapid turnover.