a survey of stress and well-being among staff in higher ... - UCU

Findings4: Work-life balance and stressEvidence has been provided that work-life balance amongst UCU members inhigher education continues to be poor. Findings indicate that they frequentlyneglect their personal life and miss out on important activities due to thedemands of their work. Respondents from higher education also come homefrom work too tired to do the things they would like to do on a regular basis.Participants who reported more work-life conflict also tended to report lowerlevels of well-being in relation to demands, control, support from colleaguesand managers, role clarity, relationships at work and management of change,and perceive higher levels of work-related stress. Of the HSE stressor dimensions,demands - and to a lesser extent - control and role clarity, were the mostpowerful predictors of work-life conflict.Work-life conflict questions (1=‘not at all’, 5=‘almost always’)I have to miss important personal activitiesdue to the amount of time I spend workingMy personal life suffers because of my workI often neglect my personal needs becauseof the demands of my workMy job makes it difficult to maintain thekind of personal life I would likeI come home from work too tired to do thethings I would like to do3.23.53.63.63.8For UCU members from higher education, considerable variation was found incurrent levels of work-life integration (see figure below). For 18% of the sample,‘work’ and ‘home’ were mainly segmented (scoring 1 to 3 on a 9 point scale). Ahigh proportion of participants, however, reported a high degree of integrationbetween their work and home lives (with 64% scoring 6 or above).Current levels of work-life integration (%)25.518.62.85.79.37.210.9 10.77.51 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Total separationTotal integration30