The TUC has launched a website that offers businesses and employees guidance in improving work/life balance to their mutual advantage. Changing Times sets out a strategy including an eight-stage process of consultation and progression: developing joint working, teambuilding and project planning, involving staff, involving customers, trying out ideas, widening horizons, developing solutions, practical results and evaluation. The site’s emphasis is on improving productivity and efficiency, and it also offers case-studies, links and research.

TUC General Secretary, John Monks said: “Although we live in an age when high quality goods and services are demanded outside of what we once considered to be normal working hours, employers won’t be able to deliver successfully on these unless they involve their staff in the process of change. Too many workers in the UK are expected to work long hours and inflexibly for no return. That’s why promoting a positive approach to balancing work and other life is so important.”

The government’s recent endorsement of proposals from the Work and Parents taskforce to give parents the right to ask formally for flexible working arrangements has been welcomed by many organisations, including the TUC and the CBI.