An ad hoc committee on work-life balance was established at the January 2008 meeting of Ministers of Labour to explore how CAALL could support federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions to address work-life balance issues.

In particular, the Committee had the mandate of reviewing the literature on work-life balance workplace practices related to the costs and benefits to employers. The Committee was also to post jurisdictions’ work-life balance policies, initiatives and recent projects to the CAALL website.

This website provides information on work-life balance, including the CAALL-sponsored report Cost-Benefit Review of Work-Life Balance Practices (2009) and links to jurisdictions’ websites related to work-life balance.

Cost-Benefit Review of Work-Life Balance Practices (2009)

PDF version (3.78 MB)

This report provides an extensive review of academic, policy and business literature examining the costs and benefits of work-life balance practices to employers. The authors review the reasons why many organizations do not systematically assess costs and benefits and consider what measures and resources might be used for this purpose. They find that calculating the return on investment of work-life balance practices is a challenging task. However, results indicate that some benefits accrue to individual employees, while others are reflected in improved organizational performance (including cost savings, increased productivity, shareholder value, and increased customer satisfaction and retention).

Links to jurisdictions’ websites related to work-life balance:

British Columbia

Employment Standards Branch
Ministry of Labour and Citizens’ Services

The British Columbia Employment Standards Act provides job protected leave for matters related to work-life balance.
www.labour.gov.bc.ca/esb

Nova-Scotia

Department of Labour and Workforce Development<
Labour Standards Division

The Nova Scotia Labour Standards Code provides job protected leave for matters related to work-life balance.

http://www.gov.ns.ca/lwd/employmentrights/

Québec

Ministère du Travail du Québec
Reconciling Work and Family Life

Nowadays, human resource managers are showing an interest in measures to reconcile work and family life in their efforts to make innovations in the workplace. With all of the changes occurring in the labour market at the business and human levels, the reconciliation of family and professional responsibilities on a day-to-day basis represents a challenge for many people. In order for the implementation of such accommodation measures to be successful in enterprises, the various stakeholders must be willing to experiment with new approaches and be aware of the stakes that reconciliation measures represent for each party. Indeed, workers must make sure that the improvement of these conditions related to their employment does not undermine the ability of enterprises to perform in the market place. On the contrary, it must constitute an asset for all concerned.

Here is an outline of what you will find on this subject on the website of the Ministère du Travail du Québec: a description of the problems arising from situations described in various scenarios experienced by workers in enterprises; a non-exhaustive inventory of clauses of collective agreements applying to some of these situations; detailed references to two forums held on this subject in Québec in the early 2000s, and a few statistics on certain aspects of the reconciliation of work and family life in Québec collective agreements analyzed at the Department in 2007.
www.travail.gouv.qc.ca/innovations/resourceshumaines/conciliationtravailfamille/conciliation.html (website only available in French)

Saskatchewan

Work and Family Unit, Career and Employment Services
Saskatchewan Ministry of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour

The Work and Family Unit website contains information and links to news & events, research, publications, Saskatchewan community partnership groups, and the 2005 and 2008 Saskatchewan Work and Family Balance Awards and Awards Winners.
www.workandfamilybalance.com

Federal Government

Labour Program, Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC)
Work-Life Balance in Canadian Workplaces

The Federal Labour Program created a website to help organizations design and implement supportive programs and policies facilitating work-life balance.
www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/lp/spila/wlb/01home.shtml